


Miraculous Girls: Together in Paris

by GalacticDefender4679



Series: Miraculous Girls [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
Genre: F/M, Family, Romance, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 16:51:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 28,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19299826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalacticDefender4679/pseuds/GalacticDefender4679
Summary: After Rarity wins a trip to spend a semester in Paris for herself and her friends, their magic unintentionally puts them in the crosshairs of the supervillain known as Hawk Moth. But with their magic and the help of Parisian superheroes Ladybug and Chat Noir, they're more than prepared. Plus, who knows? Maybe the two won't have as much of a secret identity crisis with each other when the girls are done.For reference, this story was first written prior to Miraculous Ladybug Season 2.





	1. City of Love

Paris; a beautiful city full of art, incredible structures, love and of course, superheroes. Specifically, the great Miraculous duo of Ladybug and Chat Noir, always fighting to save the city from the Akuma-wielding supervillain Hawk Moth. But they won’t be the only ones in a few minutes as who should step out of the airport but another group of superheroes from Canterlot City; the Mane 7, superpowered magical girls bound together by their friendship.

“I can’t believe we’re actually in Paris,” said Twilight. “You know this place has some serious history behind it.”

“And Ah guess we have Rarity to thank for that,” said Applejack. “How’d you swing this?”

“Well darling, it’s simply a program CHS sponsored,” said Rarity. “For a full semester, a student and as many friends as they wish can go to Paris for school.”

“That’s great, but what schools are there in France where everyone speaks English?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I mean, what are the odds of one being just around the corner?”

“Astronomical,” said Twilight, looking at the map they were supplied with. “And while it’s actually not right around the corner, it is just a short jog from here to the school we’re enrolled in for the semester; Collège Françoise Dupont, where the class and faculty all speak English more than French. For some unknown reason.” (Hat-tip to English Dubbing of the show)

“Sounds great, but I can’t help but get this weird feeling,” said Sunset, running her fingers through her hair. “What if something happens in Canterlot while we’re gone?”

“You’re stressing, darling,” said Rarity. “Try not to. It can lead to awful-looking premature wrinkles.”

“Says the girl who let the pressure get to her about a fashion deadline exactly two minutes after it was assigned,” smirked Sunset. Rarity stopped for a second as she registered that.

“Ugh! That is an entirely different situation,” she said haughtily.

“Yeah, sure,” said Applejack.

“Uh, Excusez-moi,” said a voice behind them, obviously spooking Fluttershy. The girls looked and saw a girl maybe no older than them, with bright bluebell eyes and black hair in twin pigtails that gleamed reflective blue. She was wearing a dark gray blazer with the sleeves rolled up, and they could see from the collar that the inner lining was white with pink polka dots, over a white shirt with a pink flower design near the collar, along with rolled-up pink pants, lined the same way as her jacket and pink flat shoes along with a light pink purse over her shoulder. That’s what attracted Sunset’s attention, along with her black stud earrings. She wasn’t sure how or why, but she seemed to be sensing a faint red magical aura with black sparkles from both. You see, shortly after defeating Wallflower Blush and destroying the Memory Stone, the girls found that their geode pendants had given them a new power; even without activating their new hero suits, they could see if people or specific objects had been hit with magic, as well as their trails. “Are you the group from Canterlot?”

“Indeed we are,” said Rarity, extending her hand. “I’m Rarity, the applicant. I trust you’re the school representative?”

“That I am,” she said. “My name’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

“What’s the deal with that?” asked Rainbow.

“Hm? Oh well, my mom’s Chinese, but enough about me,” said Marinette as they all walked down the road. “I was just sent over to lead the way to your apartment.”

“Apartment?” asked Sunset. “That’s where we’re staying?”

“Don’t worry, these are luxury apartments,” said Marinette. “Huge enough for all of you, plus some.”

“What did you expect, Sunset?” asked Rarity. “It is Paris after all.”

“I just wanna see some superheroes in action,” said Pinkie excitedly. “But where are they?”

“Oh, you’re a Ladybug fan?” asked Marinette.

“You bet I am,” said Pinkie. “But real quick, can I just say I love your outfit?”

“Really? Thanks,” said Marinette, giving a little twirl. “I designed it myself.”

“Well then, I think you might have a future in fashion,” said Rarity. “And you know you can trust my eye. I interned at a boutique over the summer.”

“You did? Then you have to know who Adrien Agreste is,” said Marinette.

“Oh, of course I do,” said Rarity, turning a bit red. “What kind of teenage fashion throb doesn’t know him? Why do you ask?”

“Well… he actually goes to our school, and I kinda have a crush on him,” said Marinette. “But I have no idea how to admit it. Especially since my rival Chloe is basically competing with me for his affections.”

“Oh, I’ve been there Marinette,” said Twilight. “I’ve been there and back.”

“Kind of a long-shot, but have you tried talking to him?” asked Rainbow sarcastically. Rarity and Marinette scowled at her. “Whoa, what’d I say?”

“You honestly think she can just talk to him, Rainbow Dash?” asked Rarity. “He is _the_ premiere teen fashion model in France.”

“She’s actually not wrong,” said Marinette. “Don’t think I haven’t tried, but every time I _do_ , I just-” Unfortunately, she could only finish that thought by stopping dead in her tracks and stuttering as she looked straight ahead of her, her face turning bright red. The group looked ahead of them, and instantly most of them went the same way. They saw they were basically right in front of a tall building obviously the place where the girls were staying and there walking right in front of it a young man, maybe half-a-head taller than Marinette with brushed back blonde hair and bright green eyes with a black shirt with five horizontal colored stripes near the top under an unbuttoned white button-up shirt as a jacket with the collar turned up and sleeves rolled up above his elbows, blue jeans and orange sneakers with a black butterfly logo on the sides, and a silver ring on his right ring finger. Then, just like with Marinette, Sunset saw some sort of magical aura from the ring, and somewhere inside his jacket, but this one was black with green sparkles. He seemed very deep in thought, but then he noticed them and smiled.

“Hey Marinette,” he said, stopping and leaning against a lamp-post. “Who’re your new friends?” Marinette was still stuttering and could barely get her words out, so Sunset; still mostly unfazed by his dazzling handsomeness (“ _Whoa, where’d that come from?_ ” she thought) and interested in the magic from his ring, walked up and offered her hand.

“We’re the transfer group from Canterlot High,” she said. “I’m Sunset Shimmer, and these are my friends.”

“A pleasure,” said Adrien, shaking her hand. “Adrien Agreste, at your service.”  Then his phone buzzed a bit, prompting him to check it. “Whoops. Late for my piano lessons. Gotta go.” And with that, he made his way down the street past the girls, but just after he left Marinette basically fainted into Rarity’s arms, though still conscious. Rarity smirked at Rainbow, who was still red as a tomato.

“So…” she said, making the blush mostly vanish.

“Not. A word,” said Rainbow verbally angrily, but quietly starstruck.

“Uh, Marinette?” asked Applejack, waving her hat in their guide’s face. “You okay, Sugarcube?” Finally, Marinette snapped out of it.

“Oh uh, sorry,” she said, still bright red. “Well uh, anyway here we are. You guys have room 13 on the top floor. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” And with that, she ran off.

“Can someone say ‘obsessively smitten’?” asked Rainbow.

“I would, but it’s already so obvious,” said Twilight. “I’m surprised Adrien hasn’t noticed yet.”

“I’m surprised you guys haven’t noticed that they’ve both been hit with magic,” said Sunset.

“Wait, seriously?” asked Rainbow. The girls all looked and saw the trails of the two and watched as the black trail was following Adrien’s ring.

“What’s the story here?” asked Applejack. “Magic couldn’t have reached all the way out to Paris, could it?”

“I don’t think so,” said Twilight, studying the trails. “These seem way older than anything from Equestria. They might’ve even been here _before_ we knew about it.”

“Well if it’s not Equestrian Magic, then what is it?” asked Sunset.

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” said Twilight.

“Well, either way, I suggest we take in some of the sights of the city and get rest for school tomorrow,” said Rarity. “Trust me, jet-lag is sheer torture.”

“Noted,” said Twilight. “Alright, let’s go!” And so, the girls wandered the city, curious as to what awaits them.


	2. School

The next morning, the girls woke up to find that Rarity was at least right about one thing; the jet-lag from their trip gave most of them killer headaches. Quickly, Rarity glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly eight.

“Oh heavens, we’re late!” she said, and they all got dressed as fast as possible. “We have to get to class immediately!”

“Man, today’s gonna be tough,” said Rainbow as she threw her jacket on.

“What do you mean? Everyone at school speaks English,” said Sunset as they grabbed their gear.

“Yeah, but last I checked not a lot of us can _read_ French, so if we’re asked to read in class, we’re fleeced,” said Rainbow.

“Not necessarily,” said Twilight, pulling a small case out of her bag. “This seems like a perfect time to test out my latest invention; translation specs.” She opened the case to reveal apparatuses almost like sets of glasses without the arms. “Just attach them to your face, and they’ll turn practically invisible and instantly translate the text of any language.”

“Nice,” said Applejack, sliding them on and just as Twilight said, they turned invisible the moment they touched her brow.

“Twilight, have I ever told you you’re a genius?” asked Rainbow as they all put on the specs.

“No need to,” she said. “I already know. Now let’s just get to school.” Quickly, they all ran out of the building and just shot toward the large three-story school when Rarity accidentally bumped into someone and dropped her bag, making it spill its contents.

“Oh sorry,” said the person she hit. Rarity looked up to see it was a girl with tan skin and hazel eyes along with red-brown wavy hair with a copper red gradient down past her shoulders and a small beauty mark above her right eyebrow. She had glasses not too different from Twilight’s, a plaid flannel shirt over a white tank top, light blue jeans and white black-top sneakers. “Here, lemme help you with that.”

“Oh, why thank you,” said Rarity, putting her bag back on her back. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Rarity.”

“I’m Alya Césaire,” she said, shaking her hand. “Marinette told me about you last night.”

“Oh, you know Marinette?” asked Twilight.

“Know her? We’re basically best friends,” said Alya. “And if I’m not mistaken, you’re in our class inside.”

“Well then, shall we?” asked Sunset.

“Let’s,” said Alya as they all walked in and made for class. On the way, they saw a blonde girl with bright blue eyes wearing a yellow jacket over a white shirt and jeans.

“Who’s that?” asked Twilight.

“Chloe Bourgeois, the mayor’s daughter, aka no one you want to be associated with,” said Alya as she led them along. “Avert your eyes and just keep walking.” The girls followed her lead, but too late as Chloe had noticed them.

“Halt,” she said and the girls stopped moving.

“Just ignore her,” whispered Alya. “Let’s get outta here.”

“Think it’s a little too late for that,” whispered Sunset.

“This is interesting,” said Chloe walking over. “That semester abroad thing Canterlot is doing actually raked in some contenders? Heh. Well, I must say I thought you’d at least look better.”

“What’s the problem? Rarity here made our outfits for us,” said Rainbow.

“That is the problem,” said Chloe. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something like this.”

“Well then, guess that’s a good thing,” said Applejack. “Cause ye’re not gonna get anythin’ from her.”

“Ugh. Whatever. I’m not talking to you, hick,” said Chloe, making the girls gasp. “What?”

“Welp. She’s dead,” said Rainbow, backing away.

“Donc quoi?” asked Chloe.

“I’m sorry, I think the jetlag’s messin’ with my hearin’,” said Applejack, her eye twitching a bit. “Would you mind sayin’ that again? It sounded like you just called me the H-word.”

“What, hick?” asked Chloe, still confused.

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Applejack. “Now then…” Then out of nowhere, she moved for her pocket, but Sunset stopped her.

“Don’t bother, AJ,” she said. “She’s not worth it.”

“Alright, fine,” said Applejack taking her hand away from her pocket. “But I got my eye on you, Bourgeois.”

“You and half of Paris,” said Chloe smugly, walking away.

“Sheesh. Someone say “narcissist’,” said Twilight.

“And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s in our class,” said Marinette who just walked up.

“Oh brother,” said Rainbow.

“She honestly has the gall to say my designs were unworthy,” growled Rarity.

“She’s like that to everyone,” said Alya. “Has been for the last three years.”

“Sheesh,” said Sunset. “And we all thought Twilight and I were bad.”

“Seriously,” said Rainbow. Then she noticed a strange look from Alya and Marinette. “Kind of a long story, we’ll explain later.” Soon enough, they were all in class, the girls had introduced themselves and even managed to meet Adrien’s best friend Nino Lahiffe; a tan guy with dark hair and amber eyes who seemed like more of a DJ than even Vinyl Scratch back at CHS. In general, things were going smoothly, right up until lunch when they saw Adrien heading for the school’s front exit.

“Hey, where’s he going?” asked Twilight.

“He basically always eats lunch at home,” said Nino. “His dad forces it on him.”

“Sheesh,” said Pinkie. “I’d hate for my dad to be like that.”

“You and me both, girl,” said Alya. Marinette was barely paying attention as her eyes were following Adrien. Rainbow noticed this and just rolled her eyes.

“Jeez Mari, what’s stopping you? Just ask him out,” she said.

“Well, I would, it’s just-” she said. “Look, you guys saw what happened yesterday; whenever I try to talk to him, either Chloe interrupts me, or I just stutter and I can barely even talk.”

“Well how about this?” asked Sunset. “One of us can play at being wing-girl and ask him out for you.”

“What, like a blind date?” asked Marinette.

“Eh, more or less,” said Sunset. “Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” said Marinette. “Thanks, girls.”

“Hey, what are friends for if not helping set friends up, am I right?” asked Pinkie.

“There’s just one problem,” said Applejack. “We’ll have to wait until he gets back before we can actually ask him.”

“Well, that’s not really that big of a thing,” said Nino. “It’s just another half-hour or so.” Then an alert came through on the TV to show that a new villain had appeared across town. “Assuming he’s not held up by the supervillain of the week.”

“Uh, I gotta go,” said Marinette, running off. “See you later, guys.”

“Wha- Hey!” said Sunset as she left their view. “Just what was all that about?”

“She’s like this all the time,” said Alya. “Whenever a new villain shows up, she just runs off and disappears for like, hours. Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I gotta get footage of this for my blog.” And then she ran off. Then Twilight saw something from where Marinette ran; that same magic aura they saw on her earrings earlier blasted out a cloud of red and black. Then the group looked out the nearby window and saw the superhero Ladybug swing away. And her whole body was practically radiating the aura from Marinette’s earrings.

“Hmm,” said Twilight thoughtfully.

“What’s up, Twilight?” asked Sunset, knowing that whenever Twilight says that, she thinks of something major.

“I think I have a theory as to who Ladybug is,” she whispered to the group.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Rainbow. “But we’ll need to figure it out the old-fashioned way.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Twilight as they all ran out of the school, ready to help.


	3. The Harmonizers

Once the girls were outside, Rainbow stopped as something occurred to her.

“Wait a sec,” she said, stopping the others. “If we just show up ready to save the world as we are, we’re busted. Our magic will be known across Paris.”

“Hmm,” said Sunset. “She’s right. We’ll have to be smart about this. Time to suit up.” Quickly, they all ran to a dark corner off the main building and activated their pendants by grabbing them in one hand, transforming them into their newest pony-up power modes; epic outfits, elongated ponytails, ears, wings, the whole megillah.

Applejack’s hair gained a braid and two ties on the elongated part, her hat turned darker and got sparkles around the rim along with a single red apple on the right point, and her clothes transformed into a denim shirt and a red ruffled sparkly skirt along with red-brown boots with a single apple patch on the toes.

Fluttershy gained a braid as well, this one with flowers and a butterfly pin braided into it, and her clothes became a sparkly purple dress and teal cape-like skirt with a butterfly pattern at the bottom as well as pink slippers with white butterfly pins on the toes.

Pinkie’s hair was brought into a high ponytail and given a couple of lighter stripes and her clothes became a purple dress with three purple balloons inside a yellow heart inside a bigger blue heart on her chest and a large poofy blue tutu-like skirt with thin silk ribbons swirling around her waist, as well as blue shoes with white-yellow soles and heels and bright yellow gloves.

Rainbow’s hair got wilder, and she gained primary-colored bracers on her forearms and a large blue t-shirt with red sleeves extending down to the bottom along with yellow stripes, with a few sparkles in the middle. She had a ruffled blue skirt along with black tights dotted with faint spots just above a pair of red and orange socks and bright blue boots with red tongues and white wings on the ends.

Rarity’s hair flowed with extra extravagance around a small gold crown with sapphires in it. She also had a blue and purple dress with star-like sparkles and a gold belt around her waist, and a short royal blue cape secured to her shoulders by a few pins on her dress, as well as blue evening gloves and white boots with diamonds up to her knees.

Sunset gained an extra hair-flip off to the left with a black spiky headband just behind her pony ears and a fiery red sparkling dress with thin rosy pink ruffles just over deep pink tights extending to black boots with yellow flames on the fronts, along with detached sparkly black sleeves and a black collar around her ponytail.

Twilight gained a shiny blue tiara with rose stars all along it as well as extra sparkles on her wings and a light blue dress with a gradient-purple skirt with sparkles around the lower rim under light blue ruffles over purple tights and deep indigo boots with lighter-colored five-pointed stars. She even gained rose bracers with white five-pointed stars on them.

Then once they transformed, Twilight looked them all over and thought about something. “No, this is too obvious,” she said. “If we go in like this, everyone will know who we are, even with the suits.”

“We need masks,” said Rarity.

“We absolutely need masks,” said Twilight. Then at that cue, small domino masks appeared on their faces, Twilight’s replacing her glasses; Twilight’s was purple, Sunset’s was bright orange, Rarity’s was sapphire blue, Rainbow’s was cobalt blue, Pinkie’s was pink (duh), Fluttershy’s was teal and Applejack’s was red.

“Well… That happened,” said Sunset, feeling the mask.

“Whoa,” said Twilight, looking through it unbelievably clearly. “This is crazy. I can see perfectly.”

“The magic in the mask must have fixed your eyes,” said Rainbow.

“This is so cool!” said Pinkie. “We’re actual superheroes now! Oh! We need names!”

“That’s actually a pretty smart move,” said Twilight. “Cover-names will make it harder for people to figure out who we really are. Anyone got any ideas?”

“Uh guys, check yer mask readouts,” said Applejack, prompting all of them to look at the text in their masks, showing names the Geodes themselves appeared to have given the girls.

“The Spectrum?” asked Rainbow. “I mean I guess it makes sense.”

“Crystal Beauty,” said Rarity. “I like it.”

‘Sugar Bomb,” said Pinkie. “That sounds awesome.”

“The Shepherd,” said Fluttershy. “It sounds so nice.”

“Country Girl? Really? Cmon, gimme somethin’ cooler,” said Applejack, prompting her mask to change her name. “Yeah, the Orchard Sheriff. Much better.”

“Solaris Mind,” said Sunset. “Not bad.”

“Star Princess,” said Twilight. “That’s pretty good.”

“Oh! Why not a team name?” asked Rarity. Then they saw the symbols on their Geodes beam in front of each other as holograms, almost meshing together and giving Sunset an idea.

“The Harmonizers,” she said. The others oohed and hawed at that.

“I like that,” said Twilight.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Rainbow. “Let’s go!” Then she roared off with her speed toward all the screams.

“Ah, we might as well,” said Applejack, feeling her legs tense. “See ya there!” Then with one strong leap, she shot herself to a rooftop a few miles away and quickly continued this action to catch up to Rainbow. Fluttershy gave a quiet whistle and a group of birds flew to her, grabbed her limbs and clothes, and lifted her away after the others.

“Well then, can I give anyone a ride?” asked Rarity, generating a gem shield before she stepped onto it.

“Yeah, let’s do this,” said Sunset as she also climbed onto the board and Rarity flew it off after the others.

“Aw man,” said Pinkie. “Why don’t I have anything like that?” Then at that cue, her geode started glowing and Pinkie saw the heels of her boots turn into strange rocket-shapes. Then she saw strange hoses slither up her arms and create small pads on her palms which looked full of sugar. She was confused until she saw the hoses were connected to her boots’ rockets. Once she saw that, she realized what they were for and looked at Twilight with a smirk. “You thinking what I’m thinking, your highness?”

“I think there’s only one way to find out if we’re right,” said Twilight and Pinkie grabbed the pads which fired the jets in her boots sending her flying into the air laughing her heart out. Then Twilight surrounded herself in a magic aura and levitated herself after Pinkie and the others. Once airborne, they saw the villain in the street; he appeared to be wearing a black and purple suit with a sort-of black mark around his eyes and a screen on his chest and a TV remote in his hand.

“Good morning, citizens of Paris!” he said in a sort-of computerized voice. “And thank you for tuning in; I’m your host Commercial Chaos, and on today’s program, what say we go for a walk in the park with our ancient friends, the army of Caesar?” Then as he moved to press a button on his remote, a red and black yo-yo shot out of nowhere and wrapped around his arm, stopping him.

“Sorry,” said a male voice nearby. “But we’re gonna have to cut your debut short!” The girls looked and saw not only Ladybug there, holding her yo-yo taut, but also her partner Chat Noir. And the insane thing was that the girls saw the same aura coming from him as the one that was coming from Adrien. But that and Ladybug radiating Marinette’s aura was more than enough proof for Twilight to know that their new friends were the heroes of Paris.

“We won’t let you harm any more innocents,” said Ladybug.

“Well-well-well, if it isn’t Paris’ rising stars, the Miraculous superheroes Ladybug and Chat Noir,” said the villain. “But oh no, I wouldn’t be called Commercial Chaos if I weren’t prepared for the dashing heroes. Stay tuned for the defeat and unmasking of Ladybug and Chat Noir on Channel 49!” Then with a push of a button, a large shadow was cast over the two. The girls looked and saw a large boulder falling towards them.

“Are you kidding me?” asked Rainbow. “Alright, Sheriff, Princess, you guys handle the rock, I’ll save the others.”

“And I’ll go distract the bad guy,” said Pinkie as she flew off. Rainbow then quickly zipped down and kicked Ladybug and Chat Noir out of the way just before Applejack jumped over and straight-up pulverized the boulder with one punch, the dust blown away by the Parisian wind.

“Ooh! What have we here? A few new cameos? Oh, fantastique! Every show needs some new blood every now and then!” asked Commercial. “Seriously though, who are you guys?”

“We’re with the censors,” said Pinkie behind him, flipping a pair of clear pistol-like apparatuses out of holsters that suddenly appeared on her belt into her hands and blasting sugar paste at his coat. “And your show just got canceled.”

“Oh really?” asked Commercial. “You honestly think you can take me out with some sugar, Craft Services?”

“Actually, her name’s Sugar Bomb,” said Rainbow. “And if the name doesn’t make sense _now_ , it will in three, two, one…” Then the sugar paste started glowing pink just before it exploded, and he was knocked off to one side. But he got back up and attacked Rarity, who summoned a barrage of gem-shields and used them as weapons against him, blocking and countering his attacks.

“What do you think, Chat?” asked Ladybug as the two watched the show.

“Well, I doubt they’re Akuma,” said Chat. “Why would Hawk Moth have his minions fight each other?” Rainbow, who had actually heard all that, zipped over to them.

“Wait, you guys know what’s going on here?” she asked.

“First, tell us who you are,” said Ladybug, yo-yo ready to release if she needed it. Rainbow also saw Chat reaching for his collapsible bo-staff.

“Name’s Spectrum,” said Rainbow, watching the others fly in. “That’s the Orchard Sheriff, the Shepherd, Solaris Mind, Star Princess, Crystal Beauty, and you’ve already met Sugar Bomb. We’re the Harmonizers.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Chat, taking his clawed hand away from his staff and grabbing Rainbow’s in a handshake. He almost moved to kiss it, but Rainbow just pushed him back by the forehead.

“Whoa there! Bad kitty,” she said. “How about you just stick to flirting with Ladybug?”

“Eh, can’t argue with that,” said Chat. “Now then, this crook Hawk Moth is the one who creates these villains.”

“He does it with corrupted butterflies called Akuma that evilize people heavy with negative emotions and give them superpowers based on what they hit and the target’s motivation,” said Ladybug as the others joined them. “Then Hawk Moth has them attack Paris and go after us to try and take our Miraculous.”

“Wait, what are Miraculous anyway?” asked Twilight, holding Commercial Chaos’ remote blasts back with her telekinesis.

“They’re what give us our powers and suits,” said Chat. “Mine’s my ring, and Milady’s are her earrings.” Ladybug rolled her eyes at that remark but went back to the point.

“They each give us special powers, but we can only use them once per transformation,” she said. “After that, we have five minutes to take down the baddy and run before we transform back. And we have to run, because no one can know who we are, not even each other.” The girls looked the two over and smirked.

“Well, I guess it’s okay if someone outside you two figures it out, right?” asked Applejack.

“Of course it’s not,” said Ladybug. “No one can know who we are, not even either of us.”

“Wait, you guys don’t know who your partner is under that mask?” asked Sunset. “Seems like a sort of a trust issue.”

“That’s how our master said it was supposed to be,” said Chat. “We can’t reveal our secret identities to anyone.”

“Oh, but you will!” said Commercial, blasting down the telekinetic wall. “I’ll make you and let all of Paris see who you are!”

“We’ll see about that,” said Rainbow as she quickly grabbed everyone off the ground and raced off with them in her arms. Just as Commercial Chaos got a lock on her and fired, one command ran through Twilight’s mind.

“Scatter!” she yelled and they all jumped in different directions and the beam missed by a mile. But it actually created a large robot that started walking toward the group, generating tremors with every step.

“Are you serious right now?” asked Rainbow incredulously.

“Come now, Spectrum,” said Commercial. “Who doesn’t love a good giant robot show?”

“He has a point,” said Chat. “I mean, have you ever seen ‘Gundam Wing’?”

“Oh man, I love that show!” said Pinkie.

“Right?!” asked Chat.

“Guys, let’s focus on the bad guy here, okay?!” asked Twilight. “So where’s the Akuma?”

“Best guess? Remote,” said Sunset. “But we’re gonna have a really hard time getting to it.” And she was right; the large robot now had Commercial Chaos riding on its shoulder. Quickly they all got back together to attack.

“Lucky Charm!” yelled Ladybug as she threw her yo-yo into the air and it started sparkling. Then those sparkles came together and formed something which fell into Ladybug’s hands.

“A mirror?” she said looking at the ornate ladybug-print hand-mirror she had.

“That power is really random, isn’t it?” asked Rainbow.

“It really is,” said Ladybug, then she started looking around, mentally highlighting things that might help; Chat, Applejack, the robot’s leg and one of the buttons on Commercial’s remote. Then she had a plan. “Chat! Sheriff! Take that robot down!”

“Got it!” said Chat as he and Applejack jumped down to the robot’s foot.

“What’s the plan, Kitty?” asked Applejack.

“This,” said Chat. “Cataclysm!” Then his right claw started sparking with energy and he charged at the robot’s ankle-plate, punching it and making it and the other plates rust away, exposing the vulnerable endoskeleton. “All yours, Sheriff.”

“Much obliged, Partner,” said Applejack as she charged in and punched the joint, shattering the endoskeleton and making Commercial fall.

“Oh dear! Slammer! Help me!” he said and pushed a button on his remote, blasting a beam at the ground.

“Oh no you don’t!” said Ladybug throwing her mirror along the ground in the way of the beam, bouncing it back at Commercial Chaos, but the beam still succeeded in making a large jail-themed monster appear out of nowhere and catch the villain, landing with him and setting him down nice and safe. “Wait what?”

“People of Paris, meet a minor star of ‘Power Rangers Dino Charge’; Slammer!” said Commercial Chaos. “His cages are inescapable, even by one as lucky as you, Ladybug. Slammer, if you would?”

“You’re all getting a life sentence,” said Slammer, generating a cage on a chain in his hands. “No parole!” Then he threw the cage at the group and caught them, teleporting them away. Once they were gone, Commercial Chaos laughed.

“Excellent work, Slammer,” he said. “You’d make a great star, but I’m afraid this was a bit role anyway. Au Revoir!” And with another push of a button, Slammer disappeared and Commercial Chaos marched off into Paris.


	4. Caged In

Suddenly, the whole group, cage and all, appeared in a subterranean maintenance tunnel with a large thud, and all got up groaning.

“Ugh, ouch,” said Twilight as everyone got up. “Well, that could’ve gone smoother.” Then Sunset saw she landed on Chat and smirked.

“That’s weird,” she said, helping him up. “I thought cats were supposed to land on their feet.”

“Well, usually cats don’t have to land in such crowded spaces,” said Chat, stretching. “Now then, how do we get out of here?”

“Allow me,” said Applejack as she moved for the bars. She rubbed her hands together and then grabbed two of the bars and pulled them apart as hard as she could, but they wouldn’t budge, even with Applejack’s obscene strength. Finally, after much straining, she gave up and let go of the bars. “Well, there goes that plan. Anyone else?”

“Just let me handle this,” said Pinkie as she moved to the bars. She spat on both her hands and then pointed them at the bars. “Open Sesame!” But, as expected, nothing happened. “Well, I’ve done all I can do.”

“Can’t you just blow out the bars, Sugar Bomb?” asked Rainbow, not in the mood for a SpongeBob reference right now.

“Oh yeah!” said Pinkie as she whipped out her sugar guns, blasted sugar paste on the bars and let it explode, blasting out a hole in the bars.

“Nice work, Demogirl,” said Chat as he jumped out of the cage and they all climbed up to the street. “Cmon, if we hurry, we can stop Commercial Chaos before he does any more damage.”

“Quite honestly, this is really easy,” said Rainbow sarcastically. “Just get him to sit down on a couch.”

“How would that work?” asked Ladybug.

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve lost the TV remote in the couch back home?” asked Rainbow. “It’ll be so easy, he’ll never expect it.”

“Okay, that’s fair, but I doubt this will work like that,” said Sunset. “He probably has some sort of power that makes it so that he can’t lose it. We need to get that remote away from him and, I assume break it?”

“Yeah, that’s the only way to release the Akuma so I can purify it,” said Ladybug. Then her earring and Chat’s ring beeped. They both checked their jewels and saw they had three pads on them.

“Then I suggest we make it fast,” said Chat. “This cat’s on his last life and he’s only got three minutes left to live it.” Then a spark went off in Twilight’s eye.

“I think I have an idea,” she said. “Commercial Chaos won’t attack a fellow Akuma, will he?”

“I don’t think so,” said Ladybug. “Why, what are you planning?”

“Well, if we trick him into believing another Akuma caught you when you’re weak, and that said Akuma wants to televise you two turning back, we might be able to catch him off-guard,” said Twilight. Chat chuckled.

“And I thought it was cats that were shifty,” he said. “So how do we get him to believe another Akuma showed up?”

“Like this,” said Twilight, grasping her Geode which somehow turned her costume’s pallet into a negative and made her mask into something more deserving of an Akuma.

“Whoa!” said Rainbow. “Nice work, Star.”

“Star Princess is gone,” said Twilight, smirking in a hollow voice. “Until I drop the illusion, the name’s Galaxy Queen!”

“Nice. Now then,” said Sunset. “If we’re gonna make this look convincing, we’re gonna have to rough each other up.”

“Fine with me,” said Chat, walking forward. “Just go easy on Milady-bug over there, and we’ll say I took the brunt of the punishment.”

“Fine with me,” said Applejack, punching him in the stomach. The others quickly followed her lead and soon they all looked much more roughed up; bruises on their faces, scratched-up suits and a small amount of blood was leaking from Chat’s mouth.

“Okay, now let’s do this!” said Ladybug, as she and Chat assumed weakened positions and let Twilight pick them up.

“It’s magic time,” she said as she levitated herself down the street and created a megaphone in her hand with her power. “Commercial Chaos! I have a deal for you! I’ve got the bug and the cat, and they’re about to turn back to normal! And I want all of Paris to see who their ‘heroes’ really are! Come and get ‘em!” Once she powered it down, she looked over at Ladybug who winked at her. This plan was bound to work.


	5. Ambush

Finally, Commercial Chaos arrived suspiciously unaccompanied but more than eager to take his prize.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Tell me, who are you?”

“What, Hawk Moth didn’t tell you about me?” asked Twilight. “Name’s Galaxy Queen, another Akuma. He sent me down to that pit where you locked them up and I took them down when they tried to escape.”

“Oh really?” asked Commercial. “Well then, let’s get this on the air.” Then he pointed his remote off to one side and created a camera which instantly pirated one of the TV lines. “Breaking News on Channel 49! Ladybug and Chat Noir have finally been captured, and are about to be unmasked by yours truly, Commercial Chaos and my new partner, Galaxy Queen! Shall we?”

“Not just yet, Commercial,” said Twilight. “Their powers are on a time limit, so why not just let that run down and unmask them then? We’ve only got two minutes left.” But what surprised her was that it was actually much later than it was when they had left school. “ _Man, that first fight must’ve run longer than I thought._ ” she thought.

“Ooh! ~ I like how you think, your majesty,” said Commercial. “Let’s do it.” Suddenly, a strange purple mask-shape appeared on his face. Sunset saw this from her ambush perch and quickly used her amplified powers to peer into his mind to hear what he was hearing.

“ _Commercial Chaos, you imbecile!_ ” said a voice she could only assume was Hawk Moth. “ _I never created a Galaxy Queen Akuma. It must be Star Princess! This is all an ambush!_ ”

“Oh, a plot-twist eh?” asked Commercial. “Well, every good show needs ‘em but not mine!” Quickly, Twilight got what was going on and flew away just before Commercial shot her with his remote, turning back once she was airborne.

“Okay, not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping that would’ve lasted longer, but oh well,” she said, letting Ladybug and Chat go. “Sic ‘em!” Quickly, Chat and Ladybug fell down toward the villain like meteors, dodging his blasts. Then the others moved in and kept him distracted, but then Rainbow saw her opening.

“Ladybug! Mirror!” she yelled and stuck her hand into the air.

“Gotcha covered!” she yelled back and threw the mirror to her, which Rainbow easily caught. “Okay, so how do we land?”

“Like this,” said Chat as he threw his staff down toward them which extended and connected to two different rooftops. He landed on it easily and grabbed Ladybug’s hand just before she fell past him, swinging her up into his arms. Once they were stable, Chat smirked at his partner and wiped the blood away from the corner of his mouth. “Im-purr-essed?”

“Honestly, I kind of am,” said Ladybug. “How’d you know that would work?”

“I didn’t,” said Chat as he grabbed her yo-yo, attached it to the staff and the two rappelled down on the line. “I was just playing it by ear.” Then he pulled on the yo-yo, which retracted it and pulled his staff down with it, both of which were secured to the specified hero’s waist. Ladybug rolled her eyes at the cat, but still smirked at him.

“Hey CC!” said Rainbow. “Don’t you know too much TV is bad for you?”

“Maybe, but I think it’s just as important as it is a nuisance!” said Commercial as he blasted her. “Unlike you!”

“Right back at ya!” she said, whipping out the mirror, which bounced the beam back to him, knocking the remote out of his hand. “Sugar Bomb!”

“Got it!” said Pinkie and she shot the remote with one of her sugar guns. “Ba-boom-ba!” Then the remote exploded into several tiny pieces, letting a little black butterfly flutter out.

“No more evil-doing for you, little Akuma,” said Ladybug, opening part of her yo-yo to a bright pink window which she spun and threw at the Akuma. “Time to de-evilize!” Then the yo-yo caught the Akuma, closed and shot back to Ladybug’s hands. “Gotcha!” Then she opened it back up and let the now purified butterfly fly away. “Bye-bye, little butterfly.” Then she took the mirror from Rainbow and threw it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!” Then a huge blast of pink energy blasted out into the air, turning into a flock of ladybugs which flew around Paris reverting all the collateral damage they all caused, and even reverting Commercial Chaos back into a tan man in a white suit, obviously a news anchor.

“Huh? What just happened?” he asked.

“Pound it!” said Ladybug and Chat fist-bumping in success.

“Group hug!” said Pinkie grabbing all the others.

“What’s the deal?” whispered Twilight.

“They have a thing, why shouldn’t we?” asked Pinkie.

“Fair enough,” said Twilight as they all got in on it.


	6. Who Are You?

Once they were done, the group made it to a roof nearby and smirked at each other.

“Did you guys just see that?” asked Rainbow. “That was our first big villain take-down. That was awesome!” Chat just chuckled.

“Oui, Spectrum,” he said. “Kudos all around.” Then he and Ladybug noticed they were on their last pad, so they only had a few seconds left before they would depower.

“I gotta go,” said Ladybug. “See you guys next time.” But just as she was reaching for her yo-yo, Chat grabbed her arm.

“Wait!” he said, prompting Ladybug to look at him unusually. “This fight made it official; I’ve taken more than my fair share of punches for you, but I won’t be able to focus next time without knowing who you are under that mask.”

“Oh, here it comes,” said Sunset, gathering the girls. Ladybug just looked at him.

“You know we can’t,” she said. “That was our first rule.”

“Rules were made to be broken,” said Chat. “Just please, my lady, let me see who wears that mask before you leave.” Evidentially, he didn’t even need to ask, as Ladybug’s suit had already started to disappear, as did his. Quickly, she caught it and dove behind a door-box just as both their suits faded, leaving exactly who the girls thought it would be under those masks; Marinette and Adrien.

“Aha!” said Twilight. “I knew it!”

“Wait what?” asked Adrien. “You knew who we were?”

“Of course we did,” said Sunset, her vision still thick with the magic aura the two radiated, which she carefully brushed away. “I saw your Miraculous’ magic trails since the moment we met you yesterday.”

“Wait, yesterday?” asked Marinette, figuring it out. “Y-You mean you’re-?”

“Indeed we are,” said Rarity as the girls all powered off their suits, revealing their true selves.

“Wait, Rarity?” asked Marinette, stepping out from behind the box. Adrien took one look at her and instantly turned red.

“M-Marinette?!” he asked. This prompted her to look back at him and do the exact same, but even brighter red.

“A-A-Adrien?!?” she asked, almost terrified.

“You’re Ladybug/Chat Noir?!” they both asked. Then they looked at the others. “You knew?!”

“Well… yeah,” said Sunset. “It’s a long story, which we can save for later if you want. Meantime, why don’t we just give you some privacy? Au Revoir.” And with that, the girls left for their apartment, leaving Marinette and Adrien alone on the rooftop.

“So yeah,” said Marinette, obviously nervous. “You’re disappointed, aren’t you?” Adrien just seized up before he jumped on her in a hug, turning her even brighter red.

“Are you kidding?” he asked, almost crying happy tears. “Why would I be disappointed about the girl I love being right behind me in class this whole time?” That statement sent them both bright red and wide-eyed, causing Adrien to quickly push them apart.

“Sorry,” he chuckled nervously. “Without the masks, I guess it’s a little more embarrassing.” Marinette just stuttered as she tried to find the right words before she gave a cute giggle.

“I l-love you too…” she stammered, unbelievably nervous. After hearing that, Adrien jumped and went even redder than her as it felt like he just got shot by Cupid. Marinette was terrified she had done something wrong and ducked down to try and hide her face.

“D- Did you just say that-” Adrien stuttered. “You love me!?” Marinette looked back up at him and nodded in a sort of aggressive embarrassment.

Adrien gave a small chuckle. “Cmon, get up,” he smirked and squatted down next to her, picking her up bridal style. Marinette started turning so red she thought she might go limp in his arms, but Adrien set her down on her feet and just pulled her face to his and kissed her.

Her eyes went wide, and she almost wanted to push herself away from him, but as the kiss deepened, she figured “ _Ah, what the hell?_ ” and kissed him right back, with enormous passion looping her arms around his neck. Finally, Adrien broke the kiss and they just stood there on the roof hugging. But what they didn’t know was that Twilight had left behind a small camera drone to capture the whole moment.

“Mission accomplished, ladies,” said Pinkie. “We have successfully played Matchmaker.”

“Man, Alya is never gonna believe this,” said Rainbow.

“Believe what? That her best friend is Ladybug, or that she finally got to first base?” asked Applejack. Rainbow thought for a second before…

“Yes,” she answered.

“Okay, no,” said Sunset. “We keep this to ourselves, no matter what. Clear?”

“Okay-okay, sheesh,” said Rainbow.

“No, we all have to Pinkie Promise on it,” said Twilight. “Now. No one tells anybody about Mari and Adrien’s ‘after-dark habits’, okay?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” they all said, doing the usual movements.

“Still, we just figured out who the greatest heroes in France are by accident,” said Rarity. “This is enormous.”

“Agreed. We’ll have to be careful with this info,” said Twilight. “At any rate, I managed to snag everything we needed to fill out for class tomorrow, so we’d better deal with it, huh?”

“Yeah, good call,” said Sunset. “Don’t wanna get marked down on the first day.” And the girls then moved to get their homework done, prepared for what would most certainly be a beautiful relationship between Adrien and Marinette.


	7. Makin' It Known

The next morning, the girls arrived at school just in time to meet up with Marinette, Alya and Nino near the entrance, talking about what happened the day before.

“So seriously, where were you?” asked Nino. “You missed like, half the day.”

“I thought it was canceled like it was when it happened to Alya,” said Marinette.

“Well, it was, but you get the point. Besides, that doesn’t excuse the fact that you totally flacked on our after-school meetup,” she said, prompting Marinette to get scared, remembering that she and Alya were going to meet up after school that day.

“Oh right, well see, the thing is…” she said just before she felt a hand on her shoulder and saw it was Adrien’s, who had just arrived from his limo.

“She got caught in the crossfire, and I managed to save her,” said Adrien. “One thing led to another, all things E-rated of course, and long story short, we have a dinner date for Saturday night.” Marinette looked at him out of the corner of her eye, as if asking “What?”, but Adrien’s face just said, “Roll with it or we’re caught”, so she did.

“Dude, you serious here?” asked Nino.

“Dead serious, bro,” said Adrien.

“Forgive me for this, but I don’t believe you,” said Alya.

“On that, we can agree,” said Chloe, who had just walked up. “You must be joking about this, right Adri-kins?”

“Oh boy, this ain’t gonna be good,” said Applejack, biting her thumb.

“Relax, I think we can back them up,” said Twilight as she walked over with a smirk on her face. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Why would we be joking about something like this, Chloe?” asked Adrien.

“Wait, you know her Adrien?” asked Twilight as the others joined her.

“Yeah, she was one of my oldest friends back in the day,” said Adrien. “The operative word there, sorry to say, being ‘was’.”

“Ugh. Meaning what exactly?” asked Chloe.

“Meaning I saw you stick that gum on Mari’s seat on my first day here,” said Adrien.

“You told him about your secret nickname?” whispered Alya.

“It’s not exactly a secret, Alya,” said Marinette. “Everyone in school calls me that.”

“So what if I did?” asked Chloe. “She needed a lesson in respect.”

“And I suppose the red spray-paint in her hair three years ago was a lesson too?” asked Adrien.

“How did you-?” began Marinette before he looked back at her with a raised eyebrow, prompting her to glance at Alya and put it together. “Ugh. You’re right, dumb question.”

“Besides, we were all watching the fight on TV from our apartment,” said Twilight, pulling a tablet out of her bag, and turning it on to show a newsreel of the fight, showing not only it but also Adrien pulling Marinette away from some parts of the robot that Applejack toppled. “See that? That’s more than proof.”

“But that can’t- It’s fake,” said Chloe, trying to process it. “You faked that somehow.”

“You’re kidding, right?” asked Twilight, rolling her eyes. “I can barely remember the password for my laptop, and you think I can fake news footage?”

“I- You-” stammered Chloe, trying to come up with a good retort.

“Face it, darling,” said Rarity. “You’ve lost. It’s the public’s word against yours.” Chloe just turned red in the face and walked off, seething in rage.

“Oh man, this is huge,” said Alya. “Well, don’t just stand there Mari, gimme the deets.”

“Seriously dude, you can’t just leave us in the dark about this,” said Nino. “We’ve gotta publicize this.”

“Not now, guys,” said Marinette. “I’ll tell you over lunch.”

“Okay, see ya then,” said Alya as she and Nino ran in, but she turned around before she actually went inside. “Oh, and about that date, bonne chance.” Then she left after Nino. Once the group was certain she was out of earshot, Twilight gave a happy chuckle.

“You were joking about that whole ‘lack of tech-skills’ thing, weren’t you?” asked Marinette.

“Pfft. Puh-lease,” said Twilight. “I hacked into NORAD when I was _eight_. I’ve seen better security from a sea turtle nest.”

“Seriously though, why _did_ you do that?” asked Adrien.

“Well, two main reasons:” said Twilight as they all walked in. “1; to rub it in Chloe’s face when you two said you were together and she demanded context, which I have achieved. And 2; to prove any theory Alya might have about you two being Ladybug and Chat Noir false, which I have also achieved.”

“Why would she think it was us?” asked Adrien.

“Do you really need to ask?” asked Rainbow. “Neither of you are ever around when there’s a villain, you’ve both been late to class or absent whenever it happens, you look so similar to yourselves when you’re in costume that it’s a miracle no one else has put it together- do I need to go on or have I sufficiently explained?”

“No, I was just thinking,” said Adrien, directing it to Marinette. “Those few times I was at your house playing guard duty, I never actually knew I was with my crush this whole time.” Marinette blushed as she realized he was right both ways and chuckled.

“Yeah, heh-heh, kinda silly when you think about it,” she said.

“So while we’re on the topic of all this, how’s your father taking this news, Adrien?” asked Rarity. “That you have a date, I mean?”

“Père?” he asked back. “Well, let’s just say he isn’t exactly tickled pink by the prospect of me being out in, and I quote, ‘that dangerous world’, but at least he’s happy I’ve found someone.”

“And I’m sure your mother would be too, Adrien,” said Marinette.

“Wait, ‘would be’?” asked Rainbow, confused. “What, is she dead?”

“Oh uh, no,” said Adrien, pulling out his phone and looking through pictures of a young-seeming woman who looked almost identical to Adrien. “At least we don’t think. She disappeared a few years ago. No one’s seen or heard from her since.”

“Oh man, dude I’m sorry,” said Rainbow. “I didn’t mean to force it out of you or anything.”

“It’s fine,” said Adrien. “I’ve been meaning to get it off my chest anyway. Now just seemed like as good a time as any.” Then Sunset noticed something; a magic trail similar to the one Adrien and Marinette were radiating from their Miraculouses, but it was bright orange with white sparkles and a lot weaker than theirs’. And it seemed to be following Alya.

“Uh, really quick, correct me if I’m wrong, but have either of you ever given Alya a Miraculous?” she asked.

“A what?” asked Adrien.

“Here,” said Twilight, handing him and Marinette small lens visors. “These will let you see magical impulses outside our own.” The two put them on and saw the trail as well.

“Wait a second,” said Adrien. “I know that color scheme. That’s Rena Rouge.”

“Wait, you mean Alya is-?!” Pinkie was abruptly cut off by Applejack slapping her hand over the party-girl’s mouth. Then Adrien turned to Marinette, seemingly in anger.

“Alya’s been Rena Rouge this whole time?” he asked, pulling her to the side.

“Adrien, I really wanted to tell you all of this, trust me, but Master Fu told me never to tell anyone,” said Marinette.

“Master Fu? The Guardian?” asked Adrien.

“Uh bonjour?” asked Rarity. “Would you mind bringing us into your little circle of trust?”

“We are partners after all,” said Applejack. Adrien looked around but then moved to grab the girls.

“Not here,” he said. “We all have free periods second class. Meet us at the gym. and we’ll explain everything.”

“Okay,” said Twilight as they all went to class.


	8. Miraculous History

Once second period rolled around, the girls all met in the gym just in time for Adrien and Marinette to arrive and martial them to a darker corner.

“Okay so, what’s the story with that Master Fu guy you were talking about earlier?” asked Sunset.

“He’s the guardian of the Miraculous,” said a small voice. The girls were confused when a small red being with a large head with dark blue eyes and black spots as compared to the rest of her small body.

“Aah!” squeaked Rainbow as she and Fluttershy jumped back in surprise.

“Fascinating,” said Twilight as she poked at the being. “What are you?”

“I’m Tikki,” she said. “The Kwami of the Ladybug Miraculous.”

“The what?” asked Sunset.

“Kwami,” said another voice. Then a small black creature similar to Tikki with green eyes and small cat-like teeth, ears, whiskers, and tail flew out of Adrien’s jacket. “Name’s Plagg, nice to meetcha.”

“Doesn’t exactly answer our question,” said Pinkie. “But you’re just so cute, so it’s okay!”

“Let me explain,” said Tikki. “We Kwamis are ancient abstract beings that empower the Miraculous and allow for their transformations.”

“Wait, ‘abstract’?” asked Applejack. “As in, you’re not real? Cause you look real enough to me.”

“Me too,” said Twilight, touching Plagg’s small cat-like whisker. “I mean, you _are_ tangible.”

“When we choose to be,” said Plagg, floating away from her. “Look, it’s like this; whenever a new emotion or concept starts happening in the universe, Kwamis show up with powers based on those concepts.”

“You mean concepts like generosity and the like?” asked Rarity.

“Bingo,” said Plagg. “And since Tikki here is the Kwami of Creation…”

“And the first instance of creation was the Big Bang…” said Twilight adding it up in her head. “Wait; Tikki, am I going crazy or does that mean you’re literally 13.7 billion years old?”

“Eh, give or take,” she replied. “The thing is that we couldn’t actually be seen by regular beings like you humans. We could journey across the universe if we willed it, but humans couldn’t even sense us, much less interact with us.”

“Which is where the Miraculous come in, I assume?” asked Fluttershy, getting interested and significantly less scared.

“Yep. Thousands of years ago in China, an ancient mage created the Miraculous for the Kwamis to interact with humans,” said Plagg. “Of course, our appearance changed when we each first fused with our specific Miraculous, but we still remained the same.”

“From then on, the Miraculous and their Kwamis were handed down to people like Marinette and myself to protect the world from evil,” said Adrien. “Though, every now and then, there are instances where a Miraculous has found itself in the hands of a villain and forced to help them in their schemes.”

“Like Hawk Moth?” asked Twilight.

“Exactly,” said Tikki. “He got his powers from Nooroo, the Butterfly Kwami of Generosity.”

“That seems ironic,” said Twilight.

“Actually darling, when you think about it, it’s really not,” said Rarity. “Hawk Moth _is_ **giving** people their powers.”

“Not that, Rarity,” said Twilight. “I mean why does Hawk Moth keep sending these villains after Mari and Adrien’s Miraculouses if he already has one?”

“Because according to legend, if anyone manages to possess the Miraculouses of both the Ladybug and Black Cat, they will attain absolute power,” said Tikki.

“Oh, that explains it,” said Sunset. “He wants that absolute power to conquer the world. Y’know, the over-clichéd bad guy thing.”

“Yeah,” said Adrien. “But the issue remains as to who he is. And also, why my partner/new girlfriend couldn’t tell me her best friend was Rena Rouge.”

“I already told you, Master Fu didn’t let me,” she said. “He said her powers were only for jobs where we couldn’t handle it ourselves. Besides, we can’t let her keep it until we’ve unlocked all the secrets of the Miraculous Spellbook.”

“Spellbook? You mean that thing I, uh… ‘borrowed’ from my dad and Lila stole?” asked Adrien.

“The very same,” said Marinette.

“Wait, spellbook?” asked Twilight. “Why would he have it?”

“He said it was a gift from his wife,” said Marinette.

“That doesn’t seem likely,” said Sunset. “If you ask me, the only way he could have something like that is if he knows something about Kwamis and the Miraculous.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Plagg, interested.

“That,” said Sunset, pointing at the air near them. Everyone looked and the magic sensors showed Adrien and Marinette wispy paths of another Miraculous aura, but it was black with purple sparkles. “Would I be correct in assuming that’s Nooroo’s color-scheme?”

“Yes, it is,” said Tikki. “Those must be the paths Hawk Moth’s Akuma took to evilize people.”

“Which means they must converge somewhere,” said Twilight. “I think if we find the convergence point, we’ll find Hawk Moth’s hideout.”

“And finally be able to take him down,” said Adrien, snickering. “I like the way you think.”

“But if my theory is correct,” said Twilight. “We might find the convergence point at your house.”

“What?” asked Adrien. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” said Twilight. “Why would your father have an old book about the Miraculous if he didn’t know anything about them?”

“That was actually Master Fu’s theory too,” said Marinette. “Whoever has the spellbook must also have the Butterfly _and_ Peacock Miraculous?”

“Wait, so you’re saying Adrien’s dad has Nooroo _and_ Duusu?” asked Plagg.

“We’re saying there’s a very real chance of that,” said Twilight.

“But it can’t be my father,” said Adrien. “ _He_ was akumatized.”

“A cheap attempt to cover up his true identity,” said Twilight. “Though I guess there’s only one way to find out.” Then they felt a small tremor.

“Whoa!” said Fluttershy, falling into the stands nearby. “Wh-Was that an earthquake?”

“That’s impossible,” said Adrien. “Paris isn’t on a fault-line.”

“Who wants to bet it’s another Akuma?” asked Rainbow.

“Yep,” said Twilight.

“Probably,” said Marinette.

“Shall we, my lady?” asked Adrien.

“Not here,” said Marinette. “Let’s move somewhere more private.”

“Guess testing my theory’s gonna have to wait,” said Twilight. Quickly, they all moved outside to a blind-spot for the school’s security cameras.

“Time to transform,” said Marinette as the two Kwamis flew out.

“Please, let us go first,” said Rarity as she and the others moved together. “Shall we, girls?”

“Not just yet,” said Rainbow. “I think we need a catchphrase.”

“You realize how unbelievably cheesy that sounds, right?” asked Applejack.

“Works for us,” said Adrien.

“Okay fine,” said Twilight. “What should our catchphrase be?”

“I dunno, maybe something like ‘Harmonize’?” suggested Rainbow, and out of nowhere her suit appeared in a flash of colors and sparkles, mask and all. “Whoa. What the heck?”

“The geodes must be programmed to respond to that or something,” said Twilight.

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! We must be destined to be superheroes!” said Pinkie. “This is gonna be so much fun!!!”

“Well, let’s not just stand around talkin’ about it,” said Applejack. “Let’s get out there!”

“Harmonize!” the others all shouted and their suits also appeared.

“Not bad, but I think ours sound better,” said Adrien. “Shall we, my lady?”

“Let’s do it, kitty,” said Marinette. “Tikki, Spots on!”

“Plagg, Claws out!” Adrien yelled at the same time. In an instant, their Kwamis flew into the Miraculouses and the two started morphing into their costumes as their clothes disappeared. Once done, Chat started snickering.

“What?” asked Ladybug.

“This is our first time transforming together,” he replied.

“Save the emotion for after we beat the bad guy,” said Rainbow as she rocketed away.

“Is she like this a lot?” asked Chat.

“Only when she’s excited, kitty,” said Twilight. “But she’s right about one thing; that Akuma isn’t gonna capture itself.”

“Alright,” said Ladybug. “Let’s do this!” And with that, they all charged away into Paris to fight.


	9. Monkey Prince

Once they arrived near the Louvre, the team saw a man with skin that made him look like he was made of stone as well as a monkey tail in red robes and a gold crown wielding a black staff.

“Where is he?!” he yelled. “Where is the Jade Emperor?”

“Man, this guy is weird,” said Rainbow.

“You should’ve seen what happened to Jagged Stone when _he_ got akumatized,” said Chat.

“Yeah, but Jade Emperor?” asked Twilight. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“Hey!” yelled Sunset, drawing the Akuma’s attention. “Who are you?”

“I am Jung Wukong, son of Sun Wukong the Monkey King,” he said. “And now I shall reclaim my father’s honor and take this world in it.”

“Wait, Sun Wukong?” asked Twilight as Chat jumped in and charged him. Then she realized it. “Wait, stop! Don’t do it!” But too late; Chat already swung his bo at Jung who batted him aside with a single whack of his staff, knocking him through a wall.

“Chat!” called Ladybug as she swung down to help him with Twilight floating down next to her. When they found Chat in the rubble, they saw he seemed to be in serious pain and the side of his jacket was ripped and there was a large scrape on his exposed skin. “Are you okay?”

“Let’s just say I’m glad my father didn’t design this suit for me,” he said. “He’d kill me if he found out I got it damaged.”

“How is that even possible? I thought these suits were indestructible,” said Ladybug, feeling her suit.

“You clearly don’t comprehend the power of Sun Wukong,” said Twilight. “Have any of you read ‘Journey to the West’?”

“It’s on my list,” said Chat. “Why?”

“Oh, of course,” said Ladybug understanding it. “He thinks he’s the son of the Monkey King from the story. And _he_ was basically unbeatable.”

“Well, what do we do?” asked Chat. Then out of nowhere, the others were all batted into the building, all groaning in pain.

“Am I the only one who thinks we need back-up here?” asked Rainbow. The others looked out and saw that Jung had replicated himself about a hundred times over.

“Yeah, back-up sounds good,” said Ladybug. “Try to get them tied up, then we’ll get Rena Rouge.”

“Yeah sure, we just need to find the real one,” said Rainbow, pointing at the veritable army of copies out in front of them.

“Not a problem,” said Pinkie. “I saw a summarization video of the story, so I know Monkey’s clones’ one fatal weakness; fire.”

“Well, unless you’ve got a flamethrower mode for those sugar guns, I don’t think that’s gonna work,” said Chat.

“As a matter of fact…” said Pinkie, reading her mask’s readout. “Sugar Bombers! Whipped Flame configuration!” Then her guns morphed into what looked like pink epoxy guns, but they had cans of whipped cream loaded in them instead. Then she got a manic look in her eyes as she jumped out and pulled the triggers and shot pink flaming streams of whipped cream out of her guns, burning most of the replicates as the others just watched in amazement and fear.

“Y’know, I honestly think I should’ve seen that coming,” said Chat.

“Well, what can we say?” asked Rainbow. “If there were ever a single word to describe Sugar Bomb, it would be ‘unpredictable’.”

“That’s all of them but one!” said Pinkie as the pink fire burned around the monkey. Then Applejack saw some movement beyond the fire.

“All but two, I think you mean,” she said as she shot herself through the fire and punched Jung in the stomach, barely even winding him though it did slow him down long enough for Pinkie to jump over.

“Sugar Bombers!” she said. “Icing-Over configuration!” Then her guns morphed into the form of trigger-operated icing tubes which she shot at Jung, literally freezing him in place inside a large frozen crystal of cake icing. “There! That oughtta hold him.” Then the ice started cracking.

“For all of five minutes,” said Chat.

“I’d say we’ve actually got more like 2 hours, 43 minutes and 58 seconds before he gets out,” said Twilight. “Y’know, give-or-take the five seconds it took to just say that.”

“So we’ve got just over two hours to get Rena Rouge out here and figure out how to take this guy down,” said Rainbow. “Let’s do it.”

“I’ll get the Fox Miraculous and meet you at her hideout,” said Ladybug, throwing her yo-yo around a large pole a few miles away and swinging away.

“Follow me, I know the way,” said Chat as he ran off with the others hot on his tail, literally.


	10. The Sly Fox

Once the group had reunited, they were just across the street from a tall apartment building on a street corner.

“So which apartment is hers?” asked Rainbow.

“That one there,” said Chat, pointing at the corner balcony on the top floor. Just then, Ladybug swung in and landed right near them with a small black box in her hand. “How’d it go with Master Fu?”

“Pretty well, actually,” she said. “I told him the situation, including what happened last night, and he decided that if that happened, we might as well let Alya keep her Miraculous and show her who’s under the masks.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Twilight. “Doesn’t she run the blog that basically stalks you guys?”

“Yeah, but she hasn’t revealed herself yet, has she?” asked Chat.

“Good point,” said Twilight. “But what happened to unlocking the secrets of the spellbook?”

“He said we can worry about that on the fly,” said Ladybug. “Y’know, kinda like how we handle most of the supervillains we’ve had to deal with?”

“Well, I can’t say I agree with his reasoning, but alright,” said Twilight. “So… How do we do this?”

“How about this?” asked Ladybug, mentally planning. “Head to the roof. I’ll tell her to do the same and once she’s there, we’ll all drop our suits.”

“Y’know, that actually brought up something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” said Rainbow. “Can you guys just take off your masks, but not your whole suits?”

“Hmm. That’s actually a good question,” said Chat. “Plagg, mask off.” And with that command, the black mask around his eyes vanished and his eyes turned back to normal. “Well, that answers that question. Put it back on.” And then it reappeared on his face and his eyes turned feline again. “Alright, let’s do this.” Quickly, everyone jumped back up to the roof and Ladybug swung to land on the wall near the balcony and knocked on the glass door. Alya calmly walked out onto the balcony and smirked.

“I take it you were expecting me?” asked Ladybug.

“I saw what happened at the Louvre on TV,” said Alya. “I figured you’d need my help.”

“Well, you’re right, but I’m sorry to say that if you want your Miraculous this time, you’ll have to do some work for it,” said Ladybug. “And be ready for a surprise.”

“What do you mean?” asked Alya, understandably confused.

“Meet me on the roof,” said Ladybug, swinging up there. Alya decided she didn’t really have anything to lose as long as she got her Miraculous and could help the group, so she ran out of her apartment up to the roof of the building to see Ladybug, but none of the others.

“Well, I’m here,” she said. “What’s the surprise?”

“Right here, sneaky fox,” said Chat who was standing on top of the stair-box. Alya was expectedly shocked to see the cat there, and also honestly kind of angry at Ladybug.

“You told him who I was?” she asked.

“More like I found out for myself,” said Chat as he flipped over to Ladybug. “Though milady here did help out a bit.”  Then he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her to his torso, which she blushed about, but smirked and placed her hand on his chest.

“Oh, you sly kitty,” she said cutely and kissed his cheek. But from behind the box, Alya heard someone let out a seemingly pained groan.

“Sheesh,” said Rainbow as she and the others walked out, still in costume. “Seriously, get a room, you two.”

“Maybe sometime in the future,” said Ladybug as she walked away from Chat. “For now, it’s time for the rest of your surprise. But as usual, what you see here stays off the Ladyblog, clear?”

“Crystal,” said Alya. “You know you can trust me, Ladybug.”

“Alright then,” said Ladybug. “Shall we, everyone?” And with that, they all depowered their masks, revealing who they really were under the masks. Needless to say, Alya was _beyond_ shocked.

“Marinette?! Y-You?! A-and Adrien!?! And the transfer girls? What?!?” she said. “Wait, so then you two becoming a thing-”

“We found each other out last night,” said Adrien, spinning his staff on his hand. “With some help from our new friends here.”

“Well, we aim to please Adrien,” said Rarity, generating a small gem shield in her hand. “Besides Alya, look at it like this; we’ve still basically set Marinette up with her crush. Doesn’t that help?”

“Well- well yeah, I- I mean I guess,” said Alya. “So then wait, since you showed me who you are, does that mean-?”

“Yep,” said Marinette, handing her the box. “I’ve spoken with our master; the Fox Miraculous is yours from here on out. Just uh, try to keep it and Trixx out of view of everyone at school. Especially Lila and Chloe, or they’ll never let any of us hear the end of it.”

“You say that like it’s new,” said Alya sarcastically. They all chuckled at that as Marinette walked over to her.

“Either way,” she said, opening the box to show her the orange fox-tail shaped necklace and her small fox-colored purple-eyed Kwami. “Shall we, Rena?”

“Definitely,” said Alya as she picked up the necklace and put it on. “Trixx, let’s pounce!” Then in a flash of orange light, her hair gained a white gradient at the tips, she gained tall fake fox ears and an orange suit with a white belly and a white-tipped cape coming from her back and an orange flute strapped to her back and an orange and white mask over her eyes.

“Alright,” said Twilight as everyone else powered their masks back on. “We’d better get back to the Louvre. We’ve only got a few minutes before Monkey Prince turns back.” Just then, a large shattering noise rang out from the Louvre along with some sort of half-monkey/half-human screech as well as a large chunk of the icing crystal shooting into the sky. “Then again, maybe I miscalculated.”

“How could _you_ miscalculate, Twilight?” asked Rainbow.

“Well yknow,” said Twilight, holding up her fingers. “Finger-counting; it’s- it’s more of an art than a science really.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Ladybug. “We’ve gotta stop him from tearing up the city!”

“Alright!” said Chat as he jumped away. “Let’s do this!” Quickly, everyone else followed him, ready to fight like the well-oiled machine they all knew they would be.


	11. Journey to Heaven

Soon enough, the group arrived at the Louvre, where just as they had thought, the Monkey Prince had escaped from the crystal and he was _not happy_ about it as was evidenced by his red eyes glaring at the group.

“Okay, that does it!” he growled. “Forget the Jade Emperor! I can take care of him right after you guys!”

“I’d like to see you try!” said Rainbow confidently. Then the monkey’s cape started glowing and he grew to be nearly three stories tall, instantly shaking Rainbow’s confidence. “On second thought, never mind.”

“Well, upside; at least now we have no doubt where the Akuma is,” said Rena, trying to make a joke and lessen the tension.

“Okay, so how do we take down what’s basically the bedrock monkey version of King Kong?” asked Twilight.

“First I suggest we put some space between us,” said Ladybug as they all did so, jumping all the way to the Eiffel Tower. “And second… Lucky Charm!” And in a flurry of sparkles, what should fall into Ladybug’s hands but…

“Chinese script?” she asked, looking at the paper backed in her pattern.

“What are we supposed to do with this?” asked Rena, looking at it. Then Twilight realized something.

“Wait a second,” she said, looking at the paper. “I recognize this. It’s a poem.”

“Not just that,” said Sunset, her mask translating the text for her. “It looks like some sort of spell.” Then Twilight realized it and snapped her fingers.

“The Tightening-Crown Spell!” she said. “The sutra Tang Sanzang spoke whenever Sun Wukong stepped out of line in the story.”

“Sanzang?!” asked Jung as he walked over to the tower. “As in Tripitaka?! That worthless monk! He will be next to suffer my wrath. Right after you.” Then Ladybug got an idea and looked around, mentally highlighting objects; Rena’s Flute, the spell, Chat himself, a specific spot on the floor nearby, and the gold circlet Jung was wearing on his head. Then once she had a plan together, she smirked. Quickly she handed the spell to Chat and whispered her plan to him and Rena who quickly moved to specific areas of the tower balcony. Then Ladybug stepped forward, confusing the other girls.

“You know Jung, the way I heard it, your father actually took a liking to Tripitaka and the others,” she said. “He even gained enlightenment and true immortality from the Buddha. What would he think if he saw you tearing up the world like this?”

“He’d be proud of me!” growled the monkey. “The world has wronged him hundreds of times over! I’m doing him a favor by doing this! He will reward me for this!”

“No!” said a Chinese-sounding voice. Then from behind the tower came a tall monkey-like being wearing regal red and gold robes and holding a black staff caped on both ends with gold and with a small cloud floating under his feet. “I won’t.” Jung took one look at the monkey and instantly made his cape glow once again and shrank back down to normal size and landed on the tower near him. Meanwhile, the girls were severely confused.

“Father?” asked Jung. Then the girls saw Rena walk back over with her flute in her hand and one notch gone from her necklace. Then Twilight put it together; Rena’s power allowed her to project illusions and she had created a sort-of magic hologram of Sun Wukong on the tower.

“Not just him, I’m afraid,” said a voice that sounded remarkably like Chat’s. Then from around the same corner as where Sun came from, walked a man in a bright red and yellow Chinese Buddhist cassock with a gold staff with rings hanging from the top and an ornate crown-like headdress. He was also pulling a white horse with a gold-plated saddle, bridal and reigns. Then two more beings came from around that same corner; one was a very fat being that resembled a humanoid pig in green robes holding a large ornately-constructed rake. The last of them was a large blue man with long black hair and a short black beard in seemingly water-stained brown robes and large spherical wooden beads around his neck with a large Shaolin spade in his right hand.

Jung, suddenly beset by not only his father but also his master and fellow disciples, fell to his knees and bowed. “Please, father, I have done wrong all you ever sought out to achieve! Please forgive me!”

“I’m afraid it is not up to me,” said Sun. “Sanzang-shifu?” The monk moved forward and began to speak in Chinese, though it was really just Chat reading the spell behind the corner and Rena’s illusion moving its mouth. Either way, it worked and Jung’s crown started shrinking around his head, giving him a splitting headache. Then suddenly, the same pink butterfly-shaped mask-outline as appeared on Commercial Chaos appeared around Jung’s eyes. Sunset quickly looked into the Akuma’s mind to try something, and sure enough, with enough digging through the Akuma’s admittedly fractured mind, she saw the criminal Hawk Moth; purple and black suit, silver head-mask, deep indigo cane, the whole man. Sunset even managed to see his Miraculous; a small purple brooch with four small thin white wings extending from it pinned to his chest.

“ _Monkey Prince, get up! You’re right there! Your father and his fellows are just Rena Rouge’s illusions! Just take the Miraculous and bring them to me! Now!_ ” he ordered. Once Jung heard that, Sunset quickly broke the link through his mind, but left a small “mental gate” of sorts in the mind of Hawk Moth to see if she could connect to him again herself without having to use one of his Akumas as a conduit. Then Jung grabbed his staff and swung through Sun and his fellows, making them all disappear in puffs of orange smoke. Quickly, Chat jumped out and handed the spell back to Ladybug before he slid behind Jung and ripped his cape off his shoulders.

“Cataclysm!” he yelled and hit the area under Jung’s feet, making it rust away and causing him to fall through and get stuck halfway. Then Chat just ripped the cape in half, allowing the Akuma to flutter out.

“No more evil-doing for you, little Akuma,” said Ladybug, opening part of her yo-yo to a bright pink window which she spun and threw at the Akuma. “Time to de-evilize!” Then the yo-yo caught the Akuma, closed and shot back to Ladybug’s hands. “Gotcha!” Then she opened it back up and let the now purified butterfly fly away. “Bye-bye, little butterfly.” Then she took the paper from Chat and threw it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!” Then a huge blast of pink energy blasted out into the air, turning into a flock of ladybugs which flew around Paris reverting all the collateral damage they all caused, and even pulling the Monkey Prince back onto the main floor and reverting him back into a young Chinese man and revealing that the Akuma-tized object was actually a blazer.

“Wha-?” asked the young man. “Where am I?”

“Pound it!” said the three Miraculous heroes.

“Group hug!” said the others as they grabbed each other in a hug but they broke it and everyone looked at the young man.

“Don’t worry about it, guys,” said Pinkie, letting him climb onto his back. “I can handle this.” Then she fired her boot-jets and flew the young man down to the ground, letting him walk off to the police who wrapped him with a blanket and walked him away. “Will he be okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” said the head officer there. “We’ve set up a special Akuma recovery block in the station and hospital for victims. Once they’re done, he’ll be let back into the city. Once that’s done, he’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” said Pinkie as she flew back up. “Thanks!” And with that, they all went their separate ways for now. But Twilight still had small hovering drones following Ladybug and Chat both, just for their sakes.


	12. Date Night

Finally, that Saturday night rolled around and as expected, both Adrien and Marinette were over the moon. At the Agreste mansion, Adrien had already spun himself into a black suit with a green shirt, black pin-striped necktie and black dress-vest. He was currently brushing his hair with Plagg watching while snacking on a chunk of camembert.

“Man Plagg, I cannot believe I’ve finally got a date with my Ladybug,” said Adrien.

“You do know you’re not actually gonna be in costume when you’re with her right?” asked Plagg as he swallowed the cheese in one gulp.

“Hey, I know who she is and we’re going out tonight,” said Adrien as he put away his hairbrush. “End of discussion. Anyway, how do I look?” He gave a little twirl and posed in front of his Kwami, who smirked at him.

“Like a hundred francs,” he said. “Now cmon, let’s get outta this prison.”

“I can get behind that,” said Adrien as he let Plagg fly into the pocket of his vest and slipped out of his room and down the stairs to his door. Suddenly, his father Gabriel appeared; sleek white hair, deep blue eyes, white suit, all of it.

“Adrien,” he said.

“Don’t try to talk me out of this, father,” said his son. “I’m going through with this date whether you like it or not.” Gabriel just smiled.

“I’m not going to try and talk you out of it, Adrien,” he said. “I just wanted to wish you luck out there. Take care of her.” Adrien was honestly surprised.

“ _This is weird,_ ” he thought. “ _Why is this weird?_ ” Then the magic-detecting visor Twilight had given him started giving off an imperceptible beep as Adrien saw something; the same purple and black aura as the one that the Akuma trails gave off was surrounding Gabriel, which confused him even more. Then he remembered Twilight and Marinette's theories about him. He still didn't believe it, but quickly brushed it off and smiled at Gabriel. “Thank you, Father. By the way, I’m taking the Vespa. Y’know, get some fresh air?”

“Go ahead,” said Gabriel. “But you do have someone keeping an eye on you, right?”

“Well, if I know that American transfer student Twilight, she probably has a drone on me right now,” said Adrien, looking over his shoulder to a small drone in the air outside. And on the other side, Twilight and the girls were, in fact, watching on Twilight’s laptop.

“Told you he was onto us,” said Rainbow.

“How’d he even know?” asked Sunset before she noticed Twilight was smirking a bit. “What did you do?”

“Well, while he was in the shower, I may or may not have had the drone sneak in and download a new app on his phone,” said Twilight. “My own invention. Nothing sinister; just a sort of an age projection system. Plus, I made it so that it feeds directly to my laptop.”

“So what, we’ll be able to see what they’re gonna look like when they’re thirty?” asked Applejack.

“Well yeah, doesn’t that sound cool?” asked Twilight.

“Ah mean…” said Applejack, not denying it. By this point, Adrien had left his house and was already riding over to Marinette’s house on a black Vespa scooter.

“Well, might as well check on Mari huh?” asked Sunset.

“Odds are she’s going to be obsessing over her appearance for tonight,” said Rainbow.

“And rightly so,” said Rarity. “She has dinner with _the_ premiere teen fashion idol in Paris. Who wouldn’t obsess about that?” As Twilight cut to the drone shadowing Marinette, the answer came as a non-shock; not her as she was wearing a beautiful short red dress and had her hair down to her shoulders and was fussing over it and her makeup so much it almost seemed unhealthy. Finally, she was done and looked gorgeous, but still nervous.

“Oh boy,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “Okay Marinette, no need to worry. This is only the night you’ve been dreaming of since Adrien got to school. Just try not to blow it.”

“You can do it, Marinette,” said Tikki. “This date is going to go fine.”

“I guess,” said Mari. “But what if-?” She was just about to continue that when she remembered something; she was still dealing with Chat Noir here, not just Adrien. She facepalmed at her own ignorance and smirked. “Who am I kidding? I can handle this, no sweat.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Tikki encouragingly as she flew into Marinette’s purse which she then slung onto her shoulder. Suddenly, the doorbell rang with Marinette knowing it could only be her date.

“I’ll get it,” she said sliding down the stairs and opening the door to see Adrien, looking possibly even more handsome than usual.

“Bonsoir, milady,” he said, giving a small bow. “You’re looking radiant as usual. Perhaps moreso than usual.” Marinette just giggled and blushed.

“Th-Thanks Adrien,” she said as they walked out. “Mom, Dad, I’ll be back late! Don’t wait up!”

“Try not to be out too late, Marinette,” called her mother. “But have fun.”

“Thanks, bye,” said Marinette. “Love you!” Once the door closed, Adrien chuckled as they both climbed onto the Vespa. “What?”

“I’m a little confused,” said Adrien in false pondering. “Should I be jealous?” Marinette giggled, but Rainbow just cringed after watching that on the drone feed.

“God, even without the costume, he’s a shameless flirt,” she said.

“No silly,” said Marinette. “They’re my parents; I’m supposed to say that.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Adrien. “Just hang on tight, okay?” Then he started them down the boulevard, which gave Marinette to understand their situation and roll her eyes.

“You realize this is kind of cliché, right?” she asked as they rumbled down the road.

“How do you mean?” asked Adrien.

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t see it,” said Marinette. “Two kids riding around Paris on a Vespa? I don’t even know where that reference came from, but it’s been done to death at this point.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point,” said Adrien. “Look, just keep your mouth closed so you don’t-” Suddenly Marinette started coughing before something flew out of her mouth and her breathing returned to normal. “Swallow a bug… You okay?”

“Ugh. Let’s just say I’m going to need something tough to get that taste out of my mouth,” said Marinette.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” said Adrien as he stopped the bike. “Fortunately, we’re here.” Marinette managed to get over the bad taste in her mouth and look up to see a huge white hotel with its name emblazoned in gold on the large black doormat.

“Le Bristol?” asked Marinette. “Adrien, this place is insanely high-class. How did you get us a table here?”

“Remember who you’re talking to here, Mari,” Adrien smirked. “I may have my differences with my father, but I can still use his name to get me some pretty great stuff.” Then he walked her in and walked up to the desk.

“Ah, Monsieur Agreste,” said the receptionist. “You’re here for your reservation at Epicure, non?”

“Sure are, Jacques,” said Adrien.

“Bonne,” said Jacques, walking out from behind the desk. “Right this way.” Once at the gorgeous restaurant, he grabbed a few menus and led the pair to a secluded table near the window, letting them see out into Paris. And thankfully, the place was practically empty, so they could speak freely. The two then sat across the table from each other. “Your waiter will be with you in a moment.”

“Thanks, Jacques,” said Adrien as he left, leaving the two superheroes together with each other. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes before Plagg slipped up to Adrien’s ear under his jacket.

“Don’t just sit there man, say something,” he whispered.

“Alright, alright,” Adrien whispered back before turning to Marinette. “So… just checking here, but you’re not disappointed it was me under that leather, are you?”

“Seriously? Disappointed?” asked Marinette, clearly nervous from her fast speaking. “Why would I be disappointed? I mean it just turns out my partner all this time was this incredible nice smart handsome guy who I had just the biggest crush on at school and is just so perfect and oh god, I’m rambling now aren’t I?”

Adrien just chuckled. “Yeah, you kind of are,” he said.

“But me?” asked Marinette. “I just messed up so bad so many times. Lila got Akumatized because of me and I nearly gave up my Miraculous to her. Under the mask, I’m just this rash, careless, clumsy little girl. I’m probably not the Ladybug you expected.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t know about that,” said Adrien. “Let’s see… Brave; check. Witty; check. Amazing; check. Righteous; check. Selfless; check. Beautiful; Ho-ho boy, check. Talented; check. Kind; check.”

“What are you doing?” asked Marinette, confused.

“Curious?” Adrien winked. “Check.” Then he leaned across the table a bit and rubbed her cheek, making her blush. “Adorable freckles? Definite check.” Then he poked her on the nose. “Boop.”

Marinette gave a cute giggle as she moved his hand away from her nose. “No but seriously, what _are_ you doing?” she asked.

“I’m just describing Ladybug with the exact same words I use to describe you with, Mari,” he replied. “Cause it doesn’t really matter if you wear the mask or not, it’s the same person underneath; this incredibly kind-hearted beautiful smart girl, whether she wears a ladybug-print suit and mask or a white flower-printed shirt, or in this case, a red dress which- wait, is that one of my father’s designs?”

“Oh. Uh no, this is my own work,” said Marinette, pulling on the skirt. “But I did take some serious inspiration from your dad.”

“Huh. Rarity was right; you’ve got a future,” said Adrien. “Anyway, I guess I’m just over here wondering if she digs the guy in the full-body black leather with the cool cat puns as much as she does the model underneath all that.”

“Well of course she does,” said Tikki, flying out and scaring Marinette. “Don’t you remember that Troublemaker fiasco? She has your picture all over her bedroom.”

“Tikki!” said Marinette, grabbing her in embarrassed rage. “You don’t just say stuff like that!” Tikki just gave a cute innocent giggle, but Adrien was speechless, remembering that Akuma. And the pictures of himself he saw under Marinette’s bed. Quickly, Mari got her Kwami under control and turned back to Adrien nervously. “Uh… y-yeah, about that… There are some magazine clippings… but that-that’s-”

Suddenly Adrien just broke into a fit of laughter, interrupting her. “Oh ho, I- ha-ha, haa… hoo…” he said calming down, just before noticing Marinette looking at him apprehensively. “Eh no, noo, no-no-no-no, I wasn’t laughing at you Mari, it’s just that, uh…” He then slipped across the table and beckoned her to do the same. “Look, I’ll let you in on a little secret, okay?” Then he started whispering into her ear. “I have Ladybug action figures.”

“I think you mean dolls,” said Plagg, flying out and landing on the table next to him.

“No, I mean action figures,” said Adrien, quietly angry. “There’s a difference- Du- shut up Plagg.” Plagg just gave a cruel snicker at his partner and flew back into his vest pocket.

“What, seriously?” asked Marinette, happily surprised as they separated.

“Yep,” said Adrien. “Including that incredibly rare one that came out last month. Y’know, the limited edition articulated one with the spinning LED yo-yo? I had Nathalie jump through some pre-tty major hoops for it.”

“What? No way,” said Marinette, giving a cute giggle. “I don’t even think Alya or Chloe have that one.”

“Such a cute couple,” said Sunset, watching the drone feed.

“This is gonna be the best fairy tale romance ever!” said Pinkie. Then Adrien felt his phone buzz. He checked it and saw it was a text from Nino, asking him how the date was going. He rolled his eyes for a second and was about to put it back, but then he remembered something and kept it out.

“By the way, I found this new app on my phone,” he said. “Some sort of age projector.”

“Don’t tell me you fell for that, Adrien,” said Marinette. “It’s probably another of those scam apps Alya keeps getting dragged into.”

“I don’t think so,” said Adrien, opening the app. “Check this out.” Then he showed her the screen and the first thing she saw was Twilight’s insignia. The two smirked at each other and then at the drone out the window. On the other side, Twilight quickly switched on another monitor and brought up the feed from the app.

“Alright girls, moment of truth time,” she said as they all gathered around the monitor.

“Well, I guess it’s worth a try,” said Marinette. “So how does it work?”

“Well, according to the tutorial Twilight loaded, we just take a picture and set some sort of age slider at the bottom of the photo,” said Adrien. “Ladies first.”

“Okay,” said Marinette, sitting still and giving a courteous smile. Adrien simply snapped a picture and it then quickly appeared on his phone’s screen.

“Alright so, how far into your future should we see?” asked Adrien, walking over to her, finger on the slider.

“Hmm. Maybe when I’m 30?” she suggested.

“Okay, one 30-year-old Marinette Dupain-Cheng coming right up,” said Adrien, scooting the slider along the bottom of the screen to see the contours of Marinette’s face in the picture changing as it moved. Finally, the slider reached the 30-year mark and saw that Marinette would soon become a smart-looking woman who seemed to resemble Adrien’s caretaker Nathalie in some areas with her hair up in a bun on her head. Upon seeing it, the two blushed for a moment.

“Wow. I’m really going to look like that?” asked Marinette, blown away. The other girls were blown away too when they saw it.

“Well ah’ll be darned,” said Applejack, adjusting her hat. “She’s gonna be a real looker when she’s older.”

“Yeah, whoever marries her- which let’s be honest, it’s probably gonna be Adrien- is in for a treat,” said Sunset, saying what literally everyone there was thinking.

“Okay, my turn,” said Adrien, handing his phone to Marinette and standing next to her, looking just as photogenic as he did at any of his photo shoots. Marinette blushed a bit at her new boyfriend as she snapped the photo.

“Done,” she said. “I assume you want me to make you 30 too?”

“You know me well, Mademoiselle,” said Adrien, scooting over next to her as she moved the slider. The two watched as Adrien’s face narrowed, still retaining most of his usual boyish attributes, but with a shoulder-length ponytail developing on the back of his head and looking far more handsome. Upon seeing it, Marinette just froze, her face turning bright red.

“Wow roar,” said Adrien, looking at it. “With a face like that, I think I might stick with my job as a model after all.” At the girls’ apartment, they were all looking at Adrien’s picture and were as red as Marinette was and also just as silent.

“Uh… is it wrong to be turned on by this?” asked Rainbow.

“Nope,” said the others.

“Okay, just checking,” said Rainbow. Then she saw something on the drone feed out of the corner of the lens. “Wait, what’s that?” Twilight quickly focused the drone and saw a strange van pulling up outside the hotel. Then out of it jumped a group of men in all black with masks and guns.

“Oh great,” said Sunset. “The old overly cliched bad guy posse. We’d better get over there.” The others quickly agreed and transformed, making haste to rush over. At the restaurant, the two had managed to order earlier and their food had just arrived after they took the pictures.

“Okay, I’m totally sending these to Alya,” said Adrien. “She _needs_ to put this on the school blog.”

“Right?” asked Marinette. Just then, they heard a gun near the entrance and Marinette jumped in fear, stumbling onto the ground. Or at least, she would’ve if Adrien hadn’t quickly caught her. Quickly, they hid under the table and peeked out to see a man with an MP5 SMG in his hand.

“Everybody down! Down!” he yelled and all the other patrons quickly complied, dropping to the floor. “Alright, here’s how we’re gonna do this; anyone tries to call the police, or any of those superheroes, we kill ya. Anyone tries to be a hero themselves, we kill ya. Anyone doesn’t give up their valuables right now… we kill ya! Now c’mon people, tick-tock, tick-tock.”

“Think we should try something?” asked Adrien.

“I wouldn’t,” said Plagg. “We don’t know how many of these guys there are, and even if we do take them down, they might use some of the hostages as human shields.”

“You’re right,” said Adrien as the two stayed hidden. “We’re just gonna have to try and wait them out.” Unfortunately, another of the thugs nearby; armed with an Uzi, heard them. He quickly kicked over the table and grabbed Marinette by the hair.

“Hey, guys! Look what we got here!” he said. “Looks like Agreste’s golden-boy finally got himself a girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” said Adrien, grabbing him by the shoulder. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hurt her too badly.”

“Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, don’t worry kid,” said the thug, aiming his gun at Marinette’s back. “We’ll take good care of her.” Then he tried elbowing Adrien away, but the young man caught it and unloaded the Uzi before he could get a shot off. Then he broke the man’s arm and kicked him away. Unfortunately, this prompted the other thugs to move in on the two.

“Alright you, down on your knees now,” said one of them.

“Well, we’d love to, but we’re not your mother last night,” said Adrien, tauntingly. This obviously agitated the thugs as they moved their fingers for the triggers of their guns, but then Adrien quickly saw a janitor’s cart nearby. With a mop, a block and a length of cotton rope. Once he saw them, time seemed to go in slow motion as he quickly tied the end of the rope to the block and broke the head off the mop. Then he passed the rope to Marinette who quickly got the picture as the two spun their weapons around in circles, knocking all the thugs’ guns out of their hands. One of them got off a lucky shot or two, but they just grazed the two in certain places. Finally, the thugs were all unarmed and at their mercy.

“Now then…” Marinette panted. “Check please.” Just then, the Harmonizers zipped in.

“Alright everyone, nobody panic, we can-” Rainbow began before she saw the situation and the two heroes in the middle of all the chaos. “Whoa. What’d we miss?”

“You have no idea,” said Adrien, shooting the speedster a cocky smirk. Then he saw one of the thugs pull a combat knife out of his boot and move toward Marinette. Thinking quickly (and not really that far ahead), he moved. “Get down!” He swept the pole under Marinette’s legs, knocking her down and moved to take the knife himself. Which he did so across his chest, leaving a deep slash and knocking him to the ground.

“Adrien!” yelled Marinette in concern. Quickly Rainbow zipped over and punched the thug into the nearby wall, knocking him to the floor before she and the others moved to help the model, who was currently bleeding, and his breathing was a bit labored. “We have to get him to a hospital.”

“No,” said Sunset. “If we go to a hospital, the police will want to know what happened and his secret identity might be exposed. We take him back to our hideout.”

“Okay, just take care of him,” said Marinette as they all got up and flew away on a gem platform Rarity created. Marinette was still holding Adrien’s hand as he bled, but he smirked at her.

“Not how I thought our first date would go, but hey,” he said strenuously. “Could’ve gone worse.” He chuckled a bit at that but then coughed. “Seriously though, I’m lucky.”

“No you really are,” said Twilight, scanning him with her mask’s magic. “Another centimeter and that knife would’ve hit a lung.”

“Guess I’m rubbing off on you,” Marinette joked. The two shared a giggle at that. Rainbow was confused, but Fluttershy quickly explained that ladybugs were considered as good luck, which actually made sense. Either way, this was one date night that no one would forget. Especially after what they would discover later that night.


	13. Later That Evening...

Once the group landed on the balcony of their apartment, Fluttershy and Marinette quickly rushed Adrien to the bed.

“Quick, get the area clean and prepared for surgery,” said Fluttershy as she went to the bathroom with a small box and set of strange clothes. “Rarity, get his clothes off.”

“Now-now dear, I feel Marinette should get the honor of doing that,” said Rarity, smirking at the young girl. Marinette blushed a bit, but knew she needed to do something for her love, who was at this point heavily hyperventilating.

“Go ahead, Mari,” he said. “I can’t help but feel like you’ve earned it.” Mari smiled at him and carefully moved her hands to the buttons of his shirt.

“This isn’t exactly how I predicted seeing you shirtless, you know,” she said.

“Yeah I figured,” said Adrien. “Just go ahead.” Mari started undoing the buttons and pulled off the somehow unscathed tie and finally pulled off the shirt and vest to show that Adrien was actually pretty jacked. Not cartoonishly so, however, it was fully normal for a man his age. Upon seeing it, Rainbow blushed a bit but smirked.

“Nice,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Adrien. “I try to cut down as best I can.” Then he felt a cold metal prick in his chest. “OW!” He glanced over to his chest and saw Fluttershy dressed in a suit of professional surgeon’s clothes with a surgical kit and a threaded suture needle pointed at his wound.

“Oh sorry,” she said. “This is going to hurt.”

“Not to sound cliché, but I can hold your hand if you want me to, Adrien,” said Marinette.

“I’d like that Mari,” said Adrien extending his hand to her, which she gently accepted. After that, Fluttershy started stitching his chest and Rarity started fixing Adrien’s clothes just when someone knocked on the door. Rarity quickly went to answer it and was surprised by who was there.

“Alya?” she asked, instantly scaring Marinette and Adrien. “What’re you doing here?”

“I heard about that attack over the internet,” said Alya as she squeezed into the apartment. “I wanted to see what… happened…” She trailed off as she saw the scene; Adrien half-naked on the bed with a deep gash across his chest currently holding Marinette’s hand with his free hand all while being stitched up by Fluttershy dressed as a surgeon and Rarity was fixing his clothes. “Wow. Suddenly I feel like I just walked into one of those weird TV shows.”

“Trust me,” said Pinkie jovially as usual. “I feel like I live that sort of life all the time.” A few minutes later, Adrien’s chest was closed up and bandaged with special waterproof bandages and Adrien’s clothes were fixed like the knife never even hit him. While the two lovebirds explained what happened, Sunset noticed Twilight was working on something on her computer; something that looked like a satellite map of Paris.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Trying to confirm our theories from the other day,” Twilight replied.

“What theories?” asked Alya.

“That Hawk Moth’s lair is somewhere in town,” said Marinette.

“I just hope the other part of that theory isn’t true,” said Adrien.

“We’re trying to prove that it isn’t Adrien’s dad,” Sunset quickly explained.

“What makes you think it _is_?” asked Alya.

“He had a spellbook containing all the information of the Miraculous that there ever was,” said Marinette. “And our master suspects that whoever has the book has both the butterfly _and_ the peacock Miraculous.”

“So if we figure out that it really is Mr. Agreste…” said Alya.

“Then not only will we have figured out who our worst enemy is, then I’ll have figured out that I’ve been living a lie,” said Adrien.

“What?” asked Applejack. “What’re ya talkin’ about, kitty?”

“Ever since my mother disappeared, Father’s been forcing responsibilities on me and diving into his work so deep, I worry about him sometimes,” said Adrien as he put on his shirt. “If it turns out he’s the one that’s been trying to destroy me and Marinette these past two years, then what have I really been living for?”

“Anyway,” said Twilight, punching the keys on her laptop faster than anyone could track. “I’ve managed to hack into a Google Earth satellite and use it to scan the city to see if we can pinpoint his lair. Now all I have to do is enter the data and load the Akuma-tracking filter I created, and… Bingo.” Then pictures of all the villains Marinette and Adrien had ever fought appeared on the map in different places across the city; starting with Stoneheart from the previous year and ending with Monkey Prince from just a few days ago. Then a strange purple filter started loading onto the screen, showing the trails of all of them. While watching, Sunset grew confused.

“Man, a lot of these Akumas have appeared at the school,” she said. “What’s up with that?”

“Chloe,” Marinette, Adrien and Alya answered in unison.

“Yeah, thought so,” said Sunset. Finally, the filter finished loading and showed that the Akumas’ paths did indeed converge. Unfortunately, it also confirmed the second part of their theory as the convergence point was at Adrien’s mansion. Adrien froze when he saw this and tears started welling up in his eyes. Marinette was shocked as well and also horribly sorry.

“Adrien, I-” Unfortunately, she couldn’t finish her counsel as Adrien just moved away toward the balcony.

“Claws out!” he said angrily, prompting Plagg to quickly fly into his ring and transform him into Chat Noir just before he jumped off the balcony to an adjacent rooftop.

“Adrien wait!” called Marinette. Chat looked back at her, still with an angry look in his eyes. “Please.”

“I’m sorry princess,” said Chat. “This is just something I have to do on my own.” With that, he ducked down onto his hands and feet and started running away on all fours.

“Adrien!” yelled Marinette. But it was too late; he was already gone. Marinette just fell to her knees and started crying with Alya, Sunset, and Tikki moving to her to offer counsel.

Out in the city, Chat had managed to find himself on a rooftop overlooking an open-air stage with his friends Ivan and Luka’s band, Kitty Section, playing a particularly mood-fitting song.

**(Play “On My Own” – Ashes Remain – What I’ve Become)**

The whole band vocalized to start off the song, but they continued with Luka on the microphone, Ivan joining him for the chorus as Adrien powered down on the roof and watched, still crying.

_Luka: There’s gotta be another way out_   
_I’ve been stuck in a cage with my doubt_   
_I’ve tried forever getting out on my own_   
_But every time I do this my way_   
_I get caught in the lies of the enemy_   
_I lay my troubles down_   
_I’m ready for you now_

_Both: Bring me out_   
_Come and find me in the dark now_   
_Everyday by myself, I’m breaking down_   
_I don’t wanna fight alone anymore_   
_Bring me out_   
_From the prison of my own pride_   
_My God, I need a hope I can’t deny_   
_In the end I’m realizing_   
_I was never meant to fight On My Own_

They started vocalizing again with Adrien figuring out that this song was impacting him harder than he thought as he walked along the roof, Plagg hovering after him honestly kind of scared of what his user was planning.

_Luka: Every little thing that I’ve known_   
_Is every little thing I need to let go_   
_You’re so much bigger than the world I have made_   
_So I surrender my soul_   
_I’m reaching out for your hope_   
_I lay my weapons down_   
_I’m ready for you now_

_Both: Bring me out_   
_Come and find me in the dark now_   
_Everyday by myself, I’m breaking down_   
_I don’t wanna fight alone anymore_   
_Bring me out_   
_From the prison of my own pride_   
_My God, I need a hope I can’t deny_   
_In the end I’m realizing_   
_I was never meant to fight On My Own_

Adrien was just starting to understand why his father would be the one to do this as he started running, but he still had one question running through his mind; “ _Why,_ _Père? Why?!_ ” as Luka hit a sick guitar riff.

_I don’t wanna be incomplete_   
_I remember what you said to me_   
_I don’t have to fight alone_

_Luka: Bring me out_   
_Come and find me in the dark now_   
_Everyday by myself,_

Adrien just punched a few things on the roof as he kept running until he finally understood what he thought he had to do; confront his father himself. And with that in mind, he ran along the roofs toward his mansion.

_Both: I’m breaking down_   
_I don’t wanna fight alone anymore_   
_Bring me out_   
_From the prison of my own pride_   
_My God, I need a hope I can’t deny_   
_In the end I’m realizing_   
_I was never meant to fight On My Own_

Once the song ended, Adrien found himself at the end of the roof and just jumped, not even thinking that he didn’t have enhanced leaping ability while in his civilian form. Thankfully, Ladybug swung in just in time and caught him, landing the two on the sidewalk.

“Adrien, are you insane?!” she asked transforming back. Thankfully, the streets were basically empty that evening, so she didn’t have to worry about her identity being exposed. “You could’ve killed yourself.”

“Stay out of this Marinette,” said Adrien as he walked down the street. “Gabriel’s endangered lives and broken peoples’ bodies and minds to try and destroy us. He’s had this coming for the last two years.”

“So what are you going to do, fight him?” asked Marinette. “He’s not like any of the other Akuma we’ve fought before, Adrien. He’s still your father.”

“Is that seriously what you think? Well, here’s a little newsflash for you, my lady,” said Adrien his temper rising. “The day he launched his campaign as Hawk Moth against the decent people of Paris by Akumatizing Ivan is the day he stopped being my father. And if anyone deserves to take him down, it’s me.”

“I get that, but you don’t have to do it alone,” said Marinette. “Adrien, your father might be our arch-enemy, but he’s still your flesh and blood. And if these last two years have shown us anything, it’s that he’s ruthless.”

“Yeah, that much I get,” said Adrien. “Which is why I’m going to stop him.”

“I think you mean we,” said Marinette, stopping him from walking away by putting her hand on his shoulder. “Adrien, we’re partners. Master Fu chose us both for a reason.”

“Well, maybe he was wrong!” said Adrien as he shook Marinette’s hand off and started running toward the mansion. But just before he got much farther, he was stopped by a familiar rainbow-colored streak which stopped in front of him to reveal Rainbow Dash. He looked around and saw the others around him as well, including Alya. “Are you going to try and stop me now too?”

“Ah’m seriously considerin’ it,” said Applejack. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

“Well then, why are you?” asked Adrien.

“We’re here to help you,” said Twilight. That honestly surprised the young model, along with confusing him.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“The catch is that we can’t just go charging in guns blazing,” said Twilight. “We have to be strategic about this.”

“And in this case,” said an old Chinese-sounding voice. The group all looked and saw an old Chinese man with grey hair on his head along with a mustache and goatee as well as deep brown eyes, wearing a red Hawaiian shirt with a white hibiscus design on it, tan capri pants and dark brown pants. “Being strategic appears to imply calling for reinforcements.”

“Master Fu,” Marinette and Adrien jinxed and bowed in a respective style. The others quickly understood that this old man was the protector of the Miraculous and did the same, bowing courteously.

“With all due respect Master Fu, what do you mean ‘calling for reinforcements’?” asked Twilight. “We’ve got Hawk Moth outnumbered literally ten-to-one.”

“True,” said Master Fu. “But two more never hurt.”

“Wait, do you mean…?” asked Marinette.

“Indeed Marinette,” said Master Fu, producing two small boxes similar to the one Alya’s Miraculous came from. “It is time for us to find wielders for the Turtle and Bee Miraculous. Once you have them at your side, then and only then can you attack Hawk Moth where he lives.”

“Well, who should we choose for them?” asked Twilight.

“As I did when you decided to create Rena Rouge, Marinette,” said Master Fu as he handed her the boxes. “I leave it up to you. I only hope you make your decisions worth it.” And with that, he walked away. The group opened up the boxes looked at the Miraculous; the bee was a gold hair-comb with a bee design forming the top arch. The turtle was a very simple bracelet made up of black string and a turtle stone carved from a piece of jade. Then in bright flashes of light, two Kwamis appeared from the Miraculous; one was light green with a single antenna on top of his head, a turtle shell on his back and green irises in yellow eyes. The other was bright yellow with black stripes on her head and black arms and legs and a small black-striped stinger on her bottom. She had gold eyes with blue sclerae with sharp black eyelashes, long black antennae and a small light-yellow tuft of hair around her neck.

“Good evening Ladybug,” said the turtle one. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too Wayzz,” said Marinette. “Who’s this?”

“I’m Pollen,” she said. “And man, it is ­ _way_ past time I got out of my Miraculous and got a partner. So… who’s it gonna be?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Twilight. “And I think I have just the thing. And I should be able to load it onto one of the computers in the library at school. Meet us there second period Monday.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Adrien. “My father’s planned me a photo-shoot for tomorrow afternoon, but I’ve got some free time after I’m in front of the camera before I need to be anywhere else. Bring your laptop and meet me at the park at noon. We can figure it out there.

“We’ll be there,” said Marinette as she gave him the turtle Miraculous and they all went their separate ways for the night, not just planning who to give the Miraculous to, but also how to take down Hawk Moth once they were all gathered.


	14. New Heroes

The next day, the whole group was at the ancient chapel Notre Dame to see Adrien modeling at the front door to the great church. He was giving some staged smiles and some awesome poses. The girls were there and were honestly all just smiling broadly at him, though Marinette was bright red while this was happening. Finally, Adrien was just about to pull one last pose but then he stumbled on the stairs, prompting Marinette to quickly zip over to him and catch him in what looked like a dancing dip.

“Oh my god, yes!” said the photographer as he quickly got a picture. “Better than anything we planned!” Adrien just smirked.

“You wanna lead?” he joked. Marinette turned even brighter red and ended up dropping him by accident, making him hit the ground back-first. “Ow.”

“Ohmygosh, Adrien I’m so sorry,” she said. “That was an accident, I swear.”

“Hey relax, I’m fine,” said Adrien getting up. “Anyway uh, you still wanna do the one we had planned, Pierre?”

“No need Adrien,” said the photographer. “This one is gonna be much better. Maybe even front cover. Just look at it.” Then he quickly showed the photo to the group, stunning them at how elegant it looked.

“Oh heck yeah,” said Adrien happily. “I’m sure my father will agree with that front cover remark.” He almost grimaced at that comment about his father, since he now knew he was his hated nemesis Hawk Moth, but he hid it and smiled.

“Excellent! I’ll run these over and get the photos over to him ASAP,” said Pierre as he ran off. Adrien’s huge bodyguard, who honestly sort-of scared the others, was just approaching but Adrien smiled at him and held up his hand.

“Don’t worry about it, big guy,” he said. “We’re just gonna hang out here for a bit. I’ll be home in a jiff.” His bodyguard was about to say something, but then his phone started ringing so he quickly had to leave and answer it. Once he was gone, Adrien nodded at the others and they all zipped into the cathedral garden where all five Kwamis they currently had with them quickly flew out, while Twilight produced her laptop.

“So lemme see if I have this right,” she said, typing up an algorithm. “Miraculous holders have to have personalities that mesh well with those of their partners, and just be worthy enough, right?”

“Essentially yes,” said Wayzz. “Though there are many other factors in most situations. For instance, when Tikki was partners with Jeanne d’Arc during her illustrious military campaign, it was because she had a strong sense of honor and religious conviction.”

“Wait, Tikki was teamed with Joan of Arc?” asked Sunset.

“Yeah, she was really nice,” said Tikki. “If a bit young when she passed.”

“Yeah, she was only nineteen when she was executed, right?” asked Alya.

“Well, either way, I’ve managed to figure out both of your potential partners based on personality and a few other traits that I think you guys might need to help either boost or keep in check,” said Twilight. “That’s the good news.”

“What’s the bad news?” asked Adrien.

“You might not like who I picked out for Pollen’s partner,” said Twilight, pulling up profiles of her candidates; Nino for Wayzz and Chloe for Pollen.

“No,” Marinette said instantly.

“Yes,” Twilight returned.

“No” “Yes” “No!” “Yes!”

“Twilight come on, there’s gotta be someone- _anyone_ else that could use it,” said Marinette.

“No one I could find to fit the profiling system I used,” said Twilight. “Besides, based on my analysis of Pollen’s personality; specifically the fact that she’s strict, hardworking, and knows how to keep her ego and those of others in check, but still kind unless provoked, she’s the perfect being to help Chloe be an all-around better person.”

“Well if that’s how we’re operating, you’ve got your work cut out for ya girl,” said Alya, addressing the bee Kwami. “Chloe’s basically an unknowing pawn in Hawk Moth’s huge game of chess. She’s the one who’s caused basically _all_ the Akuma these two have had to deal with over their career.”

“I can handle her,” said Pollen. “Plus, based on what I’ve heard from Wayzz and Master Fu, she basically idolizes Ladybug but hates Marinette. So if we show her that they’re one-and-the-same person…”

“Ohh… I like how you think, Pollen,” said Marinette.

“Alright, but why Nino?” asked Adrien.

“You tell me,” said Twilight.

“Well, he’s real friendly and always enthusiastic, though he can be a bit of a loose cannon at times,” said Adrien, recalling his friend.

“Which works out perfectly, since Wayzz is just like that, but a little more down-to-earth, in a manner of speaking,” said Twilight.

“Yes, I think I might like this Nino kid,” said Wayzz.

“Alright,” said Twilight. “Then it’s settled. We send messages to Nino and Chloe to come to a specific point tonight to gain their Miraculous and join us before we raid Hawk Moth’s hideout.”

“Man,” said Adrien. “Never thought I’d have to break into my own house before. But just so you guys know, I _will_ have some questions for my father before we take him down.”

“Of course,” said Sunset. “But I gotta wonder; aside from the whole world-conquering thing, why does he want the absolute power of your Miraculouses?”

“Because, once you get your hands on them, you can have one wish for anything you want,” said Plagg. “And given the backstory I’ve picked up, he probably wants to wish back his wife.”

“I’d welcome that, but I can’t agree with his methods,” said Adrien. “Well, either way, guess we should send invites to our new partners-to-be.”

“Already wrote them up,” said Twilight, pulling out two small pieces of paper.

“How do we send them?” asked Alya.

“Like this,” said Rarity as she, Fluttershy and Pinkie changed. Then Pinkie used her icing guns to create two arrows made of frozen icing, which Twilight then threaded the notes onto. Rarity created a bow out of her gem-shields and a group of spiders, on Fluttershy’s orders, created the bowstring out of their threads onto which Rarity knocked the arrows one at a time before taking aim and firing them both in the direction of Chloe and Nino’s homes. “There. Now… we wait.”

“Where are we meeting them?” asked Marinette.

“Inside the chapel,” said Twilight. “At midnight tonight. Once we get them on our side, we take them to the mansion and try to take down Hawk Moth once and for all.”

“Alright,” said Adrien. “Let’s just hope they want in.”

Thankfully they would, as once the arrows hit the respective targets that were Chloe’s suite at La Grande Paris hotel and Nino’s apartment, the tenants quickly grew curious and checked the notes, each one saying; “Chloe Bourgeois/Nino Lahiffe, you have been chosen to join us in our fight against Hawk Moth as the wielder of the Bee/Turtle Miraculous. To claim your powers and your destiny as a superhero, meet us at Notre Dame at midnight tonight. Come alone or your privileges will be revoked. Signed…” And instead of a signature, there was just the Harmonizers’ symbol, and the symbols of Ladybug, Chat Noir and Rena Rouge’s Miraculouses.

Naturally, Chloe was over-the-moon for having been chosen and Nino wasn’t in too bad a mood about it either, so they both quickly came to the same resolution; “ _I’ll be there._ ”


	15. Initiation

Midnight could not have come later than it did that day, but once it did Notre Dame was nearly abandoned when Chloe pulled up in a chauffeur-driven car. She was too excited about joining her heroes to think about how cold it was, but that sort of thinking disappeared once she saw Nino riding toward the church on a skateboard.

“Ugh. What are you doing here?” she asked haughtily. “I don’t need you cramping my style in front of Ladybug.”

“Oh for- you too?” asked Nino, confusing Chloe. “They picked me for the Turtle Miraculous.”

“Really? Well, I guess that fits you,” said Chloe, clearly dissing him. “I, however, have been chosen for the Bee.”

“Pfft. Considering the way you sting people, I’d say that fits,” said Nino as he opened the doors.

Chloe was of course insulted by that little jab and stormed past him. “If you must know, I was clearly chosen because I know how fabulous I am, just like bees,” she said.

“Frankly I’m surprised you were chosen in the first place,” said Nino. “You do know you’re basically the reason for almost all the supervillains in Paris, right?”

“And that, Monsieur Lahiffe, is exactly why Hawk Moth will never see it coming,” said Chat. The two looked up and saw his glowing green eyes in the rafters and the metal glint of his staff.

“What do you mean?” asked Nino.

“Simple, kid,” said Rainbow as she was stretching at the altar with the others. “With her on the enemy’s side, he’ll be stuck finding people to turn evil. Once he does, odds are we’ve probably already got them surrounded, ready to purify them.”

“Ugh. And who are you?” asked Chloe.

“Well, our team cover-name is the Harmonizers, but you’ll find out who we really are soon enough,” said Sunset. “Same with these three.”

“Wait, what?” asked Nino.

“You’re trusting me with your secret identities?” asked Chloe.

“Well, both of you but yeah,” said Ladybug who was currently just playing with her yo-yo. “And really quick, if you feel the need to profusely apologize to me and Rena after you see who we really are, I would welcome it.” At this time, Chat had landed next to her and was smiling while holding his staff slung over his shoulders. Then he felt something and ran his tongue along his teeth.

“Huh. You know, I just now noticed this, but I think one of my Miraculous’ effects was making my teeth sharper,” he said.

“Really?” asked Ladybug, looking at her partner’s teeth to see that they were indeed a small bit longer and sharper. “Huh. Weird. Well anyway, time for the big reveal, but just know that once you see who we are, you cannot tell _anyone_. And the same goes for your new powers. If anyone asks about your Miraculous, just say you found it in a jewelry store and don’t say anything about your superhero identity. Deal?”

“Deal,” they both said.

“Well, no turning back now,” said Twilight. “Masks off.” At that command, all their suits instantly vanished, revealing who they truly were to the two. Naturally, they were both shocked and Chloe instantly went to her hands and knees and started apologizing to the girls as fast as she could, which was actually surprisingly fast.

“Okay,” said Rainbow. “This is a thing.”

“Uh yeah I’d say so,” said Nino. “So wait, since when have you guys known each other’s identities?”

“All of us?” asked Alya. “Since Thursday.”

“Wow,” said Nino. “So anyway, you sure you want us to join you?” That quickly prompted Chloe to shoot up and smile.

“Well I can obviously see why you wanted me to join you,” said Chloe. “I’m so perfect for the job.”

“You’re actually right,” said Twilight, confusing Nino. “Your Kwami’s personality meshes with yours perfectly. Mostly due to the fact that she should be able to keep even _your_ moon-sized ego under control.” That obviously angered Chloe, but she tried to keep it in check.

“But I just want to go on record as having said that Alya and I were painfully skeptical of you joining us,” said Marinette, still playing with her yo-yo. “But I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, right?”

“Yeah apparently really desperate,” said Nino smugly, making Chloe scowl at him.

“No time for snide comebacks, Nino,” said Rarity as she levitated the Miraculouses on two small gem shields toward them, the Bee Miraculous being pure yellow but still with white wings. “Although I will admit; good one. The time has come for you to take up your Miraculous and access your powers.”

“Alright, let’s do this!” said Nino as he quickly grabbed his new bracelet and slid it onto his right wrist. Chloe also took up her new hair-comb and slipped it into her hair on the right side of her hair near her hairband. Suddenly their Kwamis appeared in the air in front of them and smiled.

“Chloe, Nino, these are your new Kwami partners; Pollen and Wayzz,” said Marinette. “They’ll give you access to your powers.”

“But before you do, something just occurred to me,” said Adrien. “You’re gonna need separate names while you’re in hero-form. Any ideas?”

“Well I was thinking of calling myself Queen Bee-” said Chloe.

“Surprisin’ no one,” interrupted Applejack.

“But now that I’ve actually met you under the mask, I’m not too sure,” Chloe finished.

“No-no, you should go with that,” said Adrien. “It honestly kinda suits you. What about you, Nino?”

“Hmm. I dunno man,” said the DJ. “I was hopin’ you guys might have some ideas.”

“Well if it helps, my old master used to call himself Carapace,” said Wayzz.

“Aw yeah, I kinda like that,” said Nino.

“Alright then,” said Marinette. “Queen Bee, Carapace, ready to make yourselves known to the people of Paris?”

“You know it,” said Nino.

“Well, I already am, but if I can get my other side some fame, all the better,” said Chloe, self-absorbed as always.

“Alright girly, quiet down and listen,” said Pollen, showing her strict side. “Your special power is called ‘Hivemind’. Just yell that and let your weapon rip and it’ll spin out as many replicates of you as you will it to, and you can order them with your mind via the antennae you’re gonna get with the suit. But use them carefully; if they take a good enough hit, they’ll disappear.”

“That might actually come in handy,” Rainbow whispered to Sunset, who nodded in agreement.

“As for you Nino, your power is known as ‘Shell-Shock’,” said Wayzz. “Yell it and slam your weapon onto the ground, and you’ll be able to grant your allies a protective barrier for a few seconds.”

“Might be handy if we go up against anyone with powers that cause some serious splash damage,” said Twilight.

“Sheesh. DnD much?” asked Rainbow.

“First; I don’t play,” said Twilight. “Second; even if I did, what’s so wrong with that?”

“Okay sheesh,” said Rainbow. “Anyways, let’s get you guys suited up and get out on the streets.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Chloe. “So how do we do this?”

“Simple,” said Wayzz. “It’s always a simple two to three-word key-code. Nino, yours is ‘Let’s slide’.”

“And Chloe, yours is ‘Wings out’,” said Pollen.

“Got it,” they both said.

“Wayzz, let’s slide!” called Nino, shooting his right hand into the air and allowing Wayzz to fly into it. Once he did, the Miraculous turned darker with five lighter green glowing triangles on the shell. Then he waved both his hands over his head, causing a set of black goggles with yellow lenses to appear on his face in place of his glasses and a dark green hood with a small silver semicircle on the front and two red eyes with black and gold details to form over his head with two light green ovals below the bottom of its opening.

Then he shot his right arm out in front of him and his suit finished forming around his body; it was a dark green bodysuit with darker hexagonal panels on his elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees. He also had six lighter green hexagons on his chest in a sort-of hopscotch pattern; two on his abs, then one and a repetition below that. He also had split-top boots with indents between his big toes and the rest of them, and dark gray outsoles. Then a large round shield; dark green on the top and light green on the side with the handles, appeared on his back before he posed.

Everyone whistled and remarked in admiration of the suit as ~~Nino~~ \- (sorry) Carapace looked himself over while getting a feel for his shield. “This is sick!” he said, letting throwing it into the air a few feet above him and allowing it to fall back onto his arm. Then he gave a strong forward throw down the aisle, only for it to come hovering back on its back, drawing a lot of attention. “Ohohohoho, _what_!? This thing’s a hoverboard too?”

“Aw man, now I’m jealous,” said Adrien, looking at his staff.

“My turn,” said Chloe before she quickly spun a small bit. “Pollen, Wings out!” Then Pollen flew into the comb and gave it its black decals. She waved her arm over her head, causing her yellow and black eye-mask to appear on her face and her hairband to turn black with two small black antennae-like ribbons sticking out of it.

Her suit then generated around her body; shining gold with three pointed black stripes on her torso under a large black form over her ribcage, as well as black sleeve-gloves with yellow fingers as well as black boots with yellow toes and heels with two black stripes on her upper thighs above her boots.

She also had a small round bag on her hip, containing three strings of several lengths including a black-and-yellow-striped beaded one as well as a yellow teardrop-shaped trompo top (point down, of course) with a black dot on the round end, as well as being wrapped in several diagonal black stripes and a white pull-string, able to be attached to the fingers with a rig that sort-of looked like bee wings. She spun more and posed, winking.

Once done, the whole group looked them over and admired it as they did Carapace. “Ooh. I love it!” she said before looking at her weapon in a state of confusion. “What’s this thing supposed to do?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Pinkie. “Give that sucker a spin!” Chloe quickly did so, throwing it while pulling the string, allowing the top to spin on the ground, sparking as it hit the ground. Once it did, however, it didn’t stop; it spun away down the aisle, bouncing off seats and walls before is bounced off the wall and spun itself back onto its string landing in Queen Bee’s hand.

Applejack just gave an admiring whistle. “Hoo-doggie, that thing’s got some zip,” she said.

“Seems like it might be pretty good for crowd control,” said Rainbow.

“Thankfully, I don’t think we’re going to have to deal with that for our next mission,” said Adrien as he and the others quickly turned their masks back on.

“Why? What’s our job?” asked Carapace.

“We’re going to take down Hawk Moth,” said Twilight. “Whom… we’ve proved is actually Adrien’s father.”

“Wait what?!” the two new heroes said in unison.

“Yeah, it was kind of a shock to me too,” said Chat. “But I can assure you I’ll have some serious volumes to say to him when we find him.”

“Look man, I’m all aboard the vengeance train, but it’s like-” Carapace then realized that he couldn’t see his watch while suited up, and that he hadn’t learned the power-down phrase. “Uh, hang on. Uh, slide away?” By sheer luck, that was the correct phrase as his suit quickly disappeared and Wayzz flew out looking a bit tired, confusing him and Queen Bee.

“Oh yeah, by the way, once we turn back, our Kwamis have to eat something to regain the power they need to transform us again,” explained Chat. “Everyone has their preferences; my Kwami Plagg is really into camembert, which yes; is the reason I’ve smelled like it since I got to school, Ladybug’s Kwami Tikki loves chocolate chip cookies and Rena’s Kwami Trixx… Uh, what does she usually eat?”

“Strawberries actually,” said Rena. “She loves ‘em. I mean I don’t blame her, I love ‘em too.”

“Who doesn’t?” asked Fluttershy.

“Okay uh, what can I getcha Wayzz?” asked Nino.

“Well, I have found myself having a fondness for grapes,” said Wayzz. “Green, please. And as for Pollen… well, as cliché as it may sound, she loves honey.” Bee sweatdropped and gave a weak chuckle.

“Of course she does,” she said.

“Well you’re in luck Wayzz,” said Twilight, pulling a single green grape out of a small bag near the altar. “I’ve got just what you want. Heads-up.” Then she flicked it to the Kwami, who easily caught it and then devoured it whole.

“Anyway, like I was saying,” said Nino, looking at his watch. “It’s already 1:15 in the morning and I seriously need some sleep. Can the whole ‘parental vengeance’ thing wait until tomorrow night?”

“For once we agree,” said Bee before she said “Wings in”, prompting her suit to disappear and Pollen to fly out of the Miraculous and land on her shoulder. “I’m exhausted and I know you are too, so why not deal with it later?”

“Much as I hate to admit it, she speaks for us too,” said Applejack.

“Ugh. Fine,” said Chat. “Meet me on the roof of my house tomorrow evening. We’ll move on my father there.”

“What if there’s an Akuma?” asked Twilight.

“Then we accelerate the plan,” said Chat. “We deal with the Akuma, then we attack move to take down my father.”

“Alright then,” said Nino. “See you at school tomorrow.”

“You know it,” said Chat as he and the others quickly jumped out of the chapel from the roof while their new recruits walked back out to their rides, already excited to be Paris’ newest superheroes.


	16. Planning

The next day, everyone arrived at school with Chloe of course holding herself in high esteem as per usual, according to Marinette and Alya. But believe it or not, she was actually acting much more civil to the rest of the student body on orders from Pollen, which wigged them out to no end. (The civility thing, not the Kwami thing; you honestly think Chloe’s gonna ignore one of the most important rules her hero gives her?)

Anyway, while in class, Adrien seemed to be barely paying attention to the teacher Ms. Bustier and seemed to be devoting his attention to planning how to infiltrate his own house that night without triggering his father’s insane security system.

“Adrien, is there something wrong?” Ms. Bustier said, noticing and prompting Adrien to get a bit scared.

“Uh, no Ms. Bustier,” he said. “Just some… family issues. Please continue.” And she did with Adrien quickly putting away his infiltration plans and opening up a new tab for his notes. Later on, the whole group was hiding out in the gym on their free period and he was working on that infiltration plan again.

“Okay, no offense or anything Adrien,” said Chloe. “But I think that work is taking up a little bit too much of your time.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just- My father had our house built like a fortress to make sure no one could break in and hurt me, and now I have to find some sort of way around it. On top of that, Nathalie and my bodyguard might be in on his scheme, so in short, I can’t trust anyone in my own home anymore.”

“Well upside; if everything goes according to my plan,” said Twilight, pressing a button on her watch turning on a hologram of Adrien’s house. “We should be able to end your father’s reign of terror over Paris. Then you guys can go back to taking down normal supervillains if you want.”

“Wait, how did you get that picture?” asked Marinette.

“You think that drone I sent Saturday night was just to spy on Adrien?” asked Twilight. “No, I also had it scan his house and point out specific blind-spots and easier access points in your house for us to get past his security system.”

“How long have you been planning this?” asked Adrien.

“Since Sunday,” said Twilight as small holographic forms of the group’s superhero forms appeared on the roof of the house and started moving as Twilight spoke. “Okay, here’s the plan; we slip in through the window in your father’s atelier which, as I’ve seen from past CCTV footage, are stupidly easy to get in through without triggering the alarm. Once we’re in, we’ll take back the spellbook and Peacock Miraculous, then we’ll try and find Hawk Moth’s lair, break into there, steal the Butterfly Miraculous and then, after securing enough tangible evidence to prove that Gabriel is Hawk Moth, we get outta there, get the book and Miraculouses back to Master Fu and get the evidence to the police. Once that’s done, all the Miraculous will be back where they belong, Hawk Moth will be ancient French history, and that’s all she wrote.”

“You make it sound easy,” said Wayzz.

“That’s because it is, my little reptilian friend,” said Twilight. “I’ve run and analyzed every possible scenario we could go through with this. Even if we get caught off-guard with _something_ , we can adapt and still bring this madness to a permanent end.”

“Alright, seems solid,” said Pollen. “Let’s get ready to do this.” Just then, Alya received a notification on her phone, which she quickly checked.

“Uh, we got a problem,” she said. “There’s an Akuma near the Eiffel Tower.”

“Guess we’re going with plan scenario B,” said Twilight. “Let’s go.” Quickly they all slipped outside, transformed and quickly proceeded to make their way across town, but whatever this Akuma was, it was fast and they could barely keep up as it sped along the River Seine.

“Keep on their tail, I’ll run ahead and cut them off,” said Rainbow as she sped down the street and the others kept going after the Akuma.

But Chat could barely focus on it. He only had one thing in mind as he jumped across Paris’ rooftops; “ _Hope you want to talk, Father. Cause I sure as hell do!_ ”


	17. Fightin' in the Fast Lane

Once Rainbow finally managed to catch up to the Akuma, she saw it was a strange-looking man in a streamlined tracksuit with spiky shoes and a basically common Akuma mask. Thankfully once she got him and he tried to turn around and run the other way, Carapace slid in on his shield and blocked him off, with the others quickly doing the same.

“You honestly think you kids can stop this race?” he asked. “The name ain’t Speedstinger for nothing.” And with that, he quickly started running, appearing as a streak to the heroes, but Rainbow quickly caught up and started fighting him on the go. Then Sunset quickly used her powers so that she could hear what Rainbow was saying and vice-versa.

“You think you can keep him distracted, Spectrum?” she asked.

“Yeah, for as long as I can,” she replied. “I’ll try and lead him back to you guys as soon as possible, but you’d better have a plan once we get there.”

“Got it,” she said, turning to the others.

“I think I might,” said Carapace. “Chat, c’mere.” Quickly he dragged the cat over to one side and set his shield up on its side with Chat quickly setting his staff under it, creating a faux ramp into the river.

“Think this’ll work?” asked Rena. “This guy’s basically speed incarnate.”

“We’re about to find out, but just to be safe,” said Carapace. “QB, once he goes up the ramp, take him down.”

“Got it,” said Queen Bee as she spun her trompo on the ground in front of the ramp, making a sort-of slick area. Once she did, the group saw Rainbow and Speedstinger running back toward them. Rainbow quickly saw the situation and slammed on the brakes in a manner of speaking, leaving Speedstinger to run in, trip over the trompo, hit the ramp and splash into the Seine. The group cheered at that, but Ladybug just watched the water.

“That was way too easy,” she said. And she was right as Speedstinger then shot up out of the water and started running on the waterway.

“Ugh. I hate it when you’re right,” said Chat as he and Carapace took up their weapons.

“Great. Now what?” asked Applejack.

“We follow him,” said Rainbow as she moved to start to chase him.

“I have a better idea,” said Ladybug. “We know Speedstinger’s going to come back after having seen Carapace and Queen Bee, and we also know that Hawk Moth isn’t one to just leave a Miraculous out of his hands, so he’ll come back to steal all five. Once he does, we take him down.”

“How so?” asked Rainbow.

“Like this,” said Ladybug. “Lucky Charm!” And in a flurry of sparkles, what should fall into Ladybug’s hands but…

“An oil can?” asked Rainbow.

“Isn’t an oil slick a little cliché?” asked Queen Bee. “He’ll see it coming from a mile away.”

“Less than that,” said Rainbow as she felt her hair move. “Here he comes!” Quickly Ladybug’s eyes darted around at various items; the oil can, Rena’s flute, Bee’s trompo, Carapace’s shield, Chat, and a light-post close to the nearby Pont des Arts bridge, still decorated with many love-locks. After looking around, she realized that she and Chat still hadn’t put a lock on the bridge ( _Author’s note_ : which is apparently a Parisian custom when confessing one’s undying love to their significant other. Or rather _was_. Long story, short version; there were some issues with the bridge’s structural integrity, so they’ve started cutting some of the locks off and started a custom of taking selfies instead, but hey; I guess Marinette’s a sucker for the classics).

“Chat, get on that light-post and get ready to swing him onto the bridge,” said Ladybug as she poured the oil can out on the ground nearby. “Rena, think your Mirage can hide this?”

Rena answered by playing a short tune on her flute, generating an orange ball of light on the end. “Mirage!” she called and tossed it at the spill, making it look like it wasn’t even there, but also a whole squadron of the others, except for Queen Bee, obviously having caught on to her plan.

“Perfect,” said Ladybug. “Queen Bee, you’re going to need decoys too.”

“Got it,” she replied and spun her top loose. “Hivemind!” Then her top spun around, creating a fleet of doppelgangers of her with the others.

“Carapace, we’re probably gonna need some extra defense in case things go south,” said Ladybug.

“On it,” he said and jumped, holding his shield in front of him. “Shell-Shock!” Then he shot to the ground and a large green wave shot out from his shield on impact, coating the others in a light green aura which then faded to appear much quieter.

“Nice,” said Ladybug. “Now Chat, once he hits the bridge, use your power and hold him down. The Akuma’s probably in one of his shoes, so we’ll just have to take care of that and we’re good.”

“Got it,” said Chat as he held the light post with one arm and held his staff out with his other. Then the girls quickly took their positions on the edge of the bevy of replicates just as Speedstinger ran in, seemingly confused by the situation but he charged in any way. That was his last mistake as he then went straight through the copies, hit the oil-slick and slid right to Chat whose staff he grabbed only for the cat-hero to swing him onto the bridge, sending him rolling head-over-heels. Once he was on the bridge, Chat jumped off the light-post and smirked.

“Cataclysm!” he yelled and quickly struck the bridge, causing the slats to shoot up and grab him like squid tentacles, leaving his feet exposed enough for Ladybug to grab his shoes off and break them both, the Akuma coming out of the right.

“No more evil-doing for you, little Akuma,” said Ladybug, opening part of her yo-yo to a bright pink window which she spun and threw at the Akuma. “Time to de-evilize!” Then the yo-yo caught the Akuma, closed and shot back to Ladybug’s hands. “Gotcha!” Then she opened it back up and let the now purified butterfly fly away. “Bye-bye, little butterfly.” Then she took the oil can back in hand and threw it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!” Then a huge blast of pink energy blasted out into the air, turning into a flock of ladybugs which flew around Paris reverting all the collateral damage they all caused, and even turning Speedstinger back into the runner he originally was, as well as repairing and replacing his shoes.

“Wha-? What just happened?” he asked.

“Pound it!” said the five Miraculous heroes as they all fist-bumped.

“Group hug!” said the girls as they all hugged each other. The police came by to take the runner away for recuperation, allowing the heroes to leave and transform back away from prying eyes.

“Alright,” said Adrien. “Now we move on with Twilight’s plan. Meet me at my house; 9:30 tonight. That’s when we move.”

“You got it,” said Twilight and they all quickly went their separate ways to prepare for the raid that evening.


	18. Infiltration

That evening, the Parisian air was cool and calm with a light wind blowing around the Agreste Mansion grounds as Ladybug and the other heroes lit atop its roof to join Chat Noir who was waiting with a serious look on his face.

“Alright man,” said Carapace. “Let’s do this.”

“Remember the plan,” said Twilight as she hovered over to the window to Gabriel’s atelier and quietly used her powers to open it from the inside and was about to let everyone slip inside when Chat grabbed her arm and pointed to a security camera inside. “Got it.” Quickly she levitated a thumb-drive into the computer which was obviously connected to the camera and it gave a small beep. “Trojan Drive in place. Security feed is now on a continuous loop. Let’s rock.” Quickly, they all slipped in and readied their weapons and/or powers just in case as they took up positions around the room.

“Alright, my father’s vault is behind his picture of my mom,” said Chat, pointing to the picture frame. Rena quickly moved it and saw it but was disappointed.

“Great,” she said. “A combination lock. We’re gonna have to break it open.”

“No need,” said Fluttershy. “You’re a fox. Foxes have great hearing.” Rena quickly got the picture and put one of her extended ears to the door near the tumbler as she started turning it around until she heard a small click inside. Trying the handle, she was happily surprised to see the safe opening.

Queen Bee gave a small chuckle as it did. “Open sesame,” she said.

“Wrong treasure,” said Applejack.

“Shoosh,” Bee replied as they all moved to the safe and looked inside, a bit confused; the only things in it were a few rolled-up pieces of old paper, a design catalog, an old plane ticket to Lhasa Gonggar Airport and a tourist book about Tibet. No spellbook and no Peacock Miraculous.

“Wait, what?” asked Chat. “This doesn’t make any sense. I specifically remember seeing the spellbook here.”

“Looking for this?” asked a voice. Everyone looked behind them and saw Hawk Moth cane in one hand and the spellbook in the other. And next to him was a woman with blue skin and hair, with one lock that looked like a peacock feather as well as pink eyes with dark indigo sclerae wearing a long blue dress with a peacock tail design on the bottom as well as dark indigo high-heeled boots and was holding a fan that looked to be made of peacock feathers. Twilight had a mental theory, which was quickly confirmed when she saw the brooch on her chest; clearly the Peacock Miraculous.

“Hawk Moth, n’est-pas?” asked Rarity.

“The very same,” he said. “And allow me to introduce my partner; Mayura.”

“Sanskrit for ‘peacock’,” translated Twilight.

“Kinda exact, don’t ya think?” asked Bee.

“As opposed to who, Queen Bee?” asked the villain, making a fair point although no one would admit it.

“I’m sorry,” said Rainbow. “I thought we were going to be fighting here?”

“Straight to the point,” said Mayura. “I like that.” Then Hawk Moth pulled on the top of his cane, revealing it to be a cane-sword.

“So Star,” said Carapace. “Is this one of the scenarios you ran when you were planning this infiltration?”

“Upsettingly no,” said Twilight. “But we can handle it; you guys take Mayura, we’ll distract Hawk Moth.”

“No,” said Chat with serious anger in his voice as his claws clenched around his staff. “He’s mine.” Then he charged his enemy and the two began dueling, with Chat forgetting all about the discipline he’d learned from his fencing instructor and letting loose in anger. Unfortunately, the whole time he was fighting his old nemesis, Hawk Moth appeared to be smiling under his mask. Twilight was curious as to why until she saw something out of the corner of her eye; an Akuma. And it was fluttering around almost waiting for a target. But as she was watching the corrupted butterfly, she didn’t notice there was another shape in the shadows until it was too late. Then when she did notice, she saw a woman with a brown ponytail in all black with a facemask and a Chinese Jian sword and Jian-style dagger, which she quickly put to Ladybug’s neck as she held her back. Chat noticed this of course and was terrified.

“Ladybug!” he yelled just before Hawk Moth punted him in the face with the pommel of his sword, sending him to the ground. Then he pointed his sword at Chat’s neck as he was on the ground.

“Now that I have your attention…” he said. “I’d like to introduce another of my latest allies; international assassin, Zhou Xinyi better known as the Raven; Her blades are as swift and sharp as she is quiet. And unless you don’t hand over your Miraculous, Ladybug will learn firsthand that that couldn’t be any more true.”

“I’m honestly surprised you’re out this late at night,” said Raven. “Don’t your parents know?”

“Of course not,” said Chat. “And even if he did, my father doesn’t exactly care what I do at night.” Then he looked back up at Hawk Moth with narrowed eyes. “Do you?”

Hawk Moth was confused until he realized what he meant by that and got a better look at the hero at his sword-point. “Adrien?” he asked, shocking Mayura as well.

Chat just depowered his mask and glared his father dead in the eye. “First prize,” said Adrien. “Congratulations. I’m sure this will be a better achievement than _any_ of those ridiculous fashion contests I won for you.” Hawk Moth just depowered his own mask to show that it was indeed Adrien’s father who had tried time and time again to destroy him and his new girlfriend. “So what now father? Do you still plan to kill me?”

“I do,” said Zhou, quickly swinging her Jian across Ladybug’s stomach, causing blood to shoot out and for her to depower and fall to her knees, letting her pull the blade out.

“Marinette!” yelled Adrien

“How did you do that?” asked Twilight. “I thought the suits were indestructible.”

“Normally they are,” said Zhou. “But not against these blades. They’re made of the same metal as the Miraculous, so they’re like a hot knife through butter against users.” Adrien didn’t even care what she had to say as he moved to crawl over to Marinette, but Gabriel stopped him with a shoe on his son’s chest.

“Know that I am sorry Adrien,” he said. “But I need your Miraculous. Give me your ring and I’ll allow you to be with ‘your lady’ in her last moments.” Marinette groaned and gurgled from the blood in her throat as she reached for Adrien.

“D- Don’t…” she said weakly. Adrien was starting to cry as Zhou took her earrings and handed them to Mayura.

“Fine,” he said. “But before I do, at least tell me… what wish will you make on our Miraculouses?”

“Your mother,” said Gabriel. “I can bring her back. Once I do, we can go back to the old days of our family. You won’t be my model anymore; just my son.”

“As good as that sounds father,” said Adrien as he took his ring off. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. Things can never go back to the way they were. Not after everything you’ve done.”

“I realize that, but I can at least try,” said Gabriel. “I can be the father you wanted me to be this whole time.”

“You really want to be my true father?” asked Adrien, clearly having changed his mind as he put his ring back on. “You should’ve tried sooner. Cataclysm!” Then he slammed his hand onto the ground and caused it to shatter under their feet, as well as the other floor. Unfortunately, it also made Mayura drop the earrings as they fell with them.

“Star!” yelled Adrien.

“Got it!” yelled Twilight as she surrounded the earrings in her aura and put them back onto Marinette’s ears.

“I got this!” yelled Carapace as he freefell toward a fragment of the floor and quickly used his power, surrounding everyone but their enemies in his aura just before they hit the ground. But it wasn’t the ground floor of the mansion as they thought it would be. It looked like a subterranean antechamber with a single catwalk extending across a large grove of trees on a lower level with a large shape similar to some of the larger windows at the top of the mansion, but it was what was under the spotlight near the window that caught Twilight’s eye.

“Is that… a coffin?” she asked, looking at the large shape under the light.

“I had no idea this was even here,” said Mayura in a voice Adrien quickly recognized.

“Wait a minute… Nathalie?” he asked. It was at that very moment that her Miraculous appeared to have run out of time, turning her back into the dull-blue-eyed black-haired woman that had taken care of Adrien for so long, which angered him to no end. “You were in on this?!”

“I’m sorry Adrien, really I am,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m sure you are,” he said, ripping the Miraculous off her jacket and handing it to Twilight, who quickly put it into a containment box. “Who else is in on this whole thing; the gorilla?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “He has no idea of this whole story. I only hired him to keep an eye on you.”

“To keep me prisoner to your will, I think you mean,” said Adrien. “I can’t believe this.” Then they heard a loud banging coming from somewhere. Rena’s ears traced it to the coffin on the other end of the catwalk, and it sounded like someone was inside.

“Who is that?” she asked. Then Queen Bee’s antennae started twitching and she heard something.

“Gabriel! Help me!” a voice echoed through her antennae to her brain, which instantly shocked her.

“Adrien…” she said turning to him. “I think that’s your mother.” Adrien was shocked and quickly ran toward the coffin.

“No you don’t,” said Gabriel, swinging his cane. “Stop him, my pets!” Then from the grove flew a whole swarm of butterflies that started swarming Adrien as he ran to try and stop him but they barely worked as Fluttershy whispered and ordered them to part allowing Adrien to run straight through them and got to the coffin, quickly doing his best to rip it open.

“Pinkie, get over here!” he yelled, not even bothering to use her hero name. “Help me get this open!”

“I’m on it!” yelled Pinkie as she ran through the swarm up to him.

“Mom! Mom, can you hear me?!” asked Adrien.

“Adrien?” the voice inside echoed. “Adrien honey, please get me out of here!”

“Alright Mrs. Agreste, I’m going to need you to move as far back from the door as you can,” said Pinkie. “I’m gonna try and blast it off.” They heard quick rustling inside the coffin, prompting Pinkie to blast her sugar paste onto the door, which promptly exploded and blasted the door off the coffin in a cloud of smoke.

“Mom?” asked Adrien as he reached into the coffin and grabbed her hand. He pulled her out to see she was very weak not to mention that she was hooked up to at least six separate pieces of life support equipment. Adrien then quickly turned his gaze to his father. “What did you do to her?!”

“Nothing, I swear,” said Gabriel, his transformation choosing right that second to run out and prompting the butterflies to flutter back into the grove. “She’s simply come down with a practically uncurable disease. I needed the Miraculous to create a cure.”

“Miraculous? Wait,” said Mrs. Agreste, looking at Adrien in confusion, then surprise. “Adrien? You’re Chat Noir?”

“Yeah. Which is why Father took the Butterfly and became Hawk Moth,” said Adrien, his transformation reverting.

“What? Gabriel?” she asked.

“Emilie, please understand; if I got my hands on the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous, I could have any wish I wanted,” said Gabriel. “I could’ve cured you.”

“But you’d be giving the disease to someone else to do it,” said Tikki as Fluttershy quickly tended to Marinette’s wounds.

“What do you mean?” asked Gabriel.

“Of course,” said Twilight. “It’s basically Newton’s third law; every action has an equal and opposite _re_ action. If you used your wish to cure your wife, you’d be giving it to someone else, essentially dooming them to death.”

“Why are we even bothering?” asked Rainbow. “He didn’t even take that into account earlier, why would he understand it now? Let’s just get the cops here.”

“What proof will you have?” asked Gabriel. “You can’t prove I’m Hawk Moth.”

“Tell that to my little friend here,” said Twilight, pointing to the drone behind her. Which had its camera pointed straight at him. “That little guy’s been rolling since we got in. We needed some sort of proof for your takedown, so I set him up to record. Either way, you’ve played right into our hands. You lose.”

“Endangering Paris, manipulating innocents, nearly killing your own son _and_ hiring an international hitwoman to help with your dirty work?” asked Sunset. “I’d say you’re going away for a long time.”

“What? No!” yelled Gabriel as he tried to run, but Rainbow quickly ran ahead of him and grabbed him, throwing him to the ground and cuffing him.

“Wait, what about us?” asked Applejack. “Won’t that thing have caught our secret identities?”

“I accounted for that Sheriff, and thankfully no,” said Twilight. “I programmed it to have a sort-of an onboard editing system, so even if we somehow managed to lose our transformations, no one who saw this footage would know anyone’s secret identities except Gabriel’s. Nathalie and Zhou are just icing on the cake.” Finally, Fluttershy had finished patching up Marinette as best she could and was helping her over to Adrien.

“Hey kitty,” she said weakly. Adrien took her from Fluttershy and hugged her.

“Hey bugaboo,” he said and kissed her, her lips melting against his and arms wrapping around each other. Then Plagg remembered something.

“Wait a sec!” he said, prompting both heroes to look at him. “I just remembered. If two people use our Miraculouses to make their wish…”

“Then it will come true with no negative consequences- of course!” said Tikki, remembering as well.

“Wait, you mean-?” asked Adrien, with Plagg simply nodding in response. He quickly looked at Marinette as he fished a piece of camembert out of his jacket to feed his Kwami and a cookie to feed that of his partner. Once they had both eaten, they quickly transformed at the same time and Chat touched his ring to one of Ladybug’s earrings.

Once they connected, they both closed their eyes and only one thing went through their minds; “ _We wish for Emilie Agreste to be healed and cured._ ” Once that was done, both their eyes shot open and a bright light radiated from them, washing over Emilie, making her appear much stronger and healthier than she did before. Once the light faded, Ladybug and Chat fell tired against the handrail of the catwalk as Emilie felt herself over.

“You’ve done it, Adrien,” she said, happy tears flowing to her eyes. “I’m cured.” Chat started crying too as he and Ladybug hugged her and each other with everyone else cheering.

It was finally over. They had won.


	19. Aftermath

Morning cracked over the beautiful city of Paris and for the first time in a long time, Adrien didn’t have to get up early for a photoshoot or to deal with an Akuma that had just made itself known.

The last night, Twilight had sent the drone to the police with all the evidence it needed to have his father locked up for many years, and it had already been leaked to the press so he had to make a statement about the situation as both Adrien _and_ Chat Noir, but he was happy. Not just because he and his ladybug had finally won for the last time, not just because he was finally free of the taskmaster that was his father, but also- _mostly_ because he finally had his mother back in his life and he could lead it normally as he had always dreamed.

Unfortunately, his early morning was disturbed by an abrupt phone call from Nino, which he had to get up to answer. “What’s up bro?” he asked.

“ _Dude, where are you and your mom?_ ” he asked. “ _We’re waiting for you over here and me and Luka already got the music ready to go._ ”

Adrien then remembered that last night, Pinkie had advocated for a huge ‘Welcome home’ party to be held for Adrien’s mom. “After all,” she had said. “She’s been gone for a few years. She deserves a huge bash!” Neither of them could object to that; they loved big parties.

“Oh right,” he said, quickly pulling on a pair of pants and his shirt. “Where is it?”

“ _Ms. Bustier’s room,_ ” said Nino. “ _Now get over here pronto dude._ ”

“Alright man alright, we’re on our way,” said Adrien because, knowing his mother, she was already up and at ‘em. “Just save some punch for us.”

“ _You got it, man,_ ” said Nino. “ _See ya here. Later._ ”

“Alright, in a bit bro,” said Adrien as he hung up and quickly slipped his phone into his jacket pocket. Plagg was asleep nearby, so Adrien quickly scooped his Kwami up and slipped him into his inner pocket before he walked out into the foyer to see that his mother was indeed waiting near the door.

“Where to, honey?” she asked. Adrien smiled. It had been way too long since he had been called something like that.

“School,” said Adrien. “I’ll navigate.” He quickly did so, and they were there in no time, but once to the classroom, they were confused to see it was dark and quiet. Adrien quickly turned to the lights and was about to turn them on when he heard someone playing the guitar. He was confused but quickly turned on the lights and the two were surprised to see a huge “Welcome Home Emilie!” banner in the back of the room, food and decorations everywhere and once the lights went up, all the students and most of their families jumped out of hiding and Adrien saw it was Luka on his guitar.

“Welcome home!” everyone cheered and Pinkie blew on a noisemaker as Luka and the guys started singing.

**(Play “Renegades” – X Ambassadors)**

Everyone whooped it up as Emilie took it all with tears in her eyes. Twilight slipped over and handed her a cup of punch and led her around the room with Adrien introducing her to everyone he had ever met in his time there. Emilie loved every second of it and was especially pleased to hear that not only was Adrien a model student, apart from a few absences (which to her were completely understandable) but that he had helped defend the classroom a few times, all out of costume. Once Luka and his band wrapped up their song, Twilight decided it was time for the toast she had planned for the event, and asked Ms. Bustier to borrow her little school-bell. The teacher easily agreed and handed it to her, letting her ring it and get everyone’s attention.

“Gather round everyone, please,” she said, letting everyone collect around the teacher’s desk. Twilight let out a contented sigh before looking around at the whole class. “Looking at everyone here, thinking about how far we’ve all come, what we’ve had to go through, those we’ve lost and those we’ve reunited with, I can’t help but be reminded of a Hebrew word used in times of graduation and/or progression; ‘Kadima’. Meaning… forward. I can’t help but think that word has never had more meaning than it does right now.” With that, she raised her punch and smiled. “Forward.”

Sunset stepped forward and raised her cup as well. “Forward.”

“Forward.” Rarity.

“Forward.” Chloe.

“Forward.” Marinette.

“Forward.” Applejack.

“Forward.” Emilie.

“Forward.” Adrien.

“Forward,” everyone said at once and touched their cups to each other before downing them. Rainbow smiled as she wrapped her arm around Twilight’s shoulder.

“You stole that from _The Flash_ , didn’t you?” she asked. Twilight smirked back at her.

“Guilty as charged,” she said and everyone laughed. Later on, Emilie stepped out for a moment, prompting Adrien and Plagg to follow her in concern.

“You okay?” asked Adrien.

“Fine, it’s just…” she replied. “This stuff kinda goes to your head after you’ve been away from it for so long.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Plagg chuckled. “So… what do you think of Adrien’s new life?” Emilie smiled at her son’s Kwami, then at him and simply hugged him.

“I don’t think I could’ve given you a better life if I tried,” she said, nearly crying.

“Thanks, Mom,” said Adrien as they broke the hug. “So listen, I was thinking; It’s been so long, I think your fans are starving to see you on the big screen again.”

“Again?” asked Emilie, understanding. “Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, you mean your father showed you _Solitude_?”

“Yeah, but it was the second time,” said Adrien. “First time I snuck out of the house and went with Marinette. Still, what do you think?”

“Hmm. Well, I’m probably going to need to get in touch with my agent, but hey, knock on wood am I right?” asked Emilie.

“Yeah, now cmon; let’s get back to the party!” said Plagg as he flew into Adrien’s jacket. The two looked at each other and thought that was a great idea as they walked back in, hand-in-hand; ready for whatever else may happen.


End file.
